Tim Jackson’s amazing amateur golf career includes two USGA championships.
He won the U.S. Mid-Amateur in 1994 and 2001 and he has been the low amateur at the last two U.S. Senior Opens.
Yet one of his biggest accomplishments on the course wasn’t even a tournament victory.
The Honors Course member earned medalist honors at the U.S. Amateur last year. He had the best score out of the 312-man field in the 36-hole qualifier. At 50-years-old, Jackson became the oldest medalist in the tournament’s 109-year history.
“That’s was one of my big accomplishments,” Jackson said. If you tell me I could lead the Senior Open at the 36-hole mark or be medalist, I’d take the medalist. I beat all of them. I was really proud of that.”
Jackson bowed out of the match-play portion in the second round of last year’s amateur championship.
Jackson and former Baylor golfers Harris English and Michael Morrison will begin stroke-play competition today in the 2010 U.S. Amateur at Chambers Bay Golf Club outside Tacoma, Wash.
Jackson will begin his tournament at 8:25 at Chambers Bay, English will begin at 1 p.m. on The Home Course and Morrison will begin play 40 minutes after English at No. 10 at The Home Course.
“Golf is the only sport you can play when you’re 51 just as well as if you’re 21,” said English, who enters his senior season at the University of Georgia. “Tim is one of the best amateurs in the country and he has been for a long time.
“This tournament isn’t just for college kids. It’s for true amateurs.”
English, who reached the quarterfinals of the U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship earlier this summer, is participating in his second amateur. He was 14th in stroke play of the 2007 championship at the Olympic Club then lost in the round of 64.
“The Am is pretty much a whole week of golf,” English said. “You have to stay ... patient. Back then, I got a lead and tried to close it out and lost. It’s a different game than stroke play and I’m getting better every time I play it.”
David Uchiyama is a sports writer at the Chattanooga Times Free Press who began his tenure here in May 2001. His primary beats are UTC athletics — specifically men’s basketball and athletic department administration — and golf, which includes coverage from the PGA Tour to youth events. He also covers other high school sports, outdoor adventures, and contributes to other sections of the newspaper when necessary. David grew up in Salinas, Calif., and began working ...
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