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SEA ISLAND, GEORGIA | On a day only a fireplace could love, Nick Gilliam lugs his golf bag down one of Ocean Forest Golf Club’s narrow, tree-lined fairways.
Gilliam, a 41-year-old from Gainesville, Fla., does so with no realistic aspirations of contending at the Jones Cup Invitational, one of the most prestigious events on a crowded amateur schedule. He already had decided on a humble goal before the opening round, his affable personality beaming with the excitement of possibility as he said it.
“If I can break 80 all three days, I’ll be really happy,” Gilliam said. “I don’t even play three rounds of golf together, ever. Just like when I’m on a long drive up I-95, I’ll have to slap myself in the face if I get tired.”
When Gilliam does play these days, it’s maybe two rounds a month at Gainesville Country Club against friends with handicaps much higher than his. After he and his wife, Jamie, bought their home, he built a putting green in the backyard so he could practice – but that area mainly has been commandeered by his 5-year-old son Brooks, with Legos more likely to be found on the turf than golf balls. If you throw in Gilliam’s busy job as a sales director at Infotech, a company that offers software solutions for engineering firms and localities, there isn’t much time to dedicate to the game.
Competitive golf has taken a back seat in Gilliam’s life as he has settled down with a dependable job with family his core priority. But in what feels like a past life, that certainly wasn’t the case.
For Nick Gilliam, the game is not as easy as it was once, but it sure sounds like fun in the moment.
It was a little less than 19 years ago when he carried his own bag on another tight, tree-lined course at Duke University Golf Club during his final collegiate start for the University of Florida. Gilliam had collected eight top-10 finishes in 37 career events before that NCAA Championship, but he had never won while playing for a Gators team that featured future PGA Tour winner Camilo Villegas and a soon-to-be U.S. Amateur champ in Bubba Dickerson.
With his team depending on him, Gilliam shot 1-under 71 in the final round to win the individual portion of the championship by three strokes. The Gators claimed a team championship as well, the second for legendary head coach Buddy Alexander. Gilliam remains close with his old coach, referring to him as a second father figure upon whom he always can depend for advice.
“I remember we had a big lead, we had gotten through all of the dangerous holes out there and Nick was the last guy left on the course,” Alexander recalled. “So I went back and walked with him for the last two holes and he finished double bogey-bogey. He still jokes with me and says that he blames me for that.”
That victory can be called the zenith of Gilliam’s competitive golf life. The Green Bay, Wis., native earned an exemption into the PGA Tour’s U.S. Bank Championship in Milwaukee, the first of seven starts in the big leagues, but he didn’t experience the professional success some of his teammates did.
“That was also where Tiger (Woods) had made his PGA Tour debut a few years earlier,” Gilliam said. “He said, ‘Hello, world,’ and I just said, ‘Hello, Milwaukee.’ ”
His professional career mostly meandered through the Hooters Tour, and the rare occasions he played in front of any sort of crowd was when retirement communities came to support their local event. The biggest exception, and it’s a significant one, is when Gilliam qualified for the 2005 U.S. Open at Pinehurst by making it through both local and sectional qualifying.
By 2008, Gilliam had grinded enough on mini-tours to pay back his investors, but he didn’t maintain the passion for the game that he once held tightly. It had become tiring work with no endgame in sight. When he left pro golf and became reinstated as an amateur a couple of years later, some would say that his competitive golf days had tapped in for a double bogey at the 18th hole, a disappointing end to what once looked like a shot to be among the game’s best.
Maybe that’s true in a traditional sense, the kind where success is measured in large checks and time spent in between the ropes. But Gilliam displayed something at the Jones Cup last week, his first significant amateur start in recent memory. His passion may have been close to bankrupt in 2008 when he realized professional golf wasn’t his ultimate path, but he’s happier on the course without that burden.
When Gilliam had finished his three days at Ocean Forest – he jokingly objected to his three-day total of 26-over-par 242 being published – one of his playing partners asked to take a photo with him. He used to have that college bag, the same as most every player in the Jones Cup field last week, and he used to be the one looking up to experienced mid-amateurs.
Now he is the connection other players hope to make. He is the one imparting wisdom, perhaps more so through his own story than anything else.
At one time, he took the game with the seriousness of his life depending upon it. Now when he misses a putt, he is apt to facetiously fist bump a la Woody Austin. Now when he is in a bunker, he quips to his playing partners that they should mark so there is “no backstopping scandal on their hands.” The game is not as easy as it was once, but it sure sounds like fun in the moment.
That’s why he came back to compete in amateur events with the hope of getting to play a handful of them this year. He came back for the time shared with other mid-amateurs, and to share what he has learned with the kids who used to have the same dreams he did.
“I take more gratitude from those moments than I do from making a birdie on the first hole,” Gilliam said. “That’s a huge reason for coming back. I’m just lucky to be around these guys.”
Events like the Jones Cup are lucky to have him.
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