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When John Humphries won his first Louisiana State Amateur at age 23, he had just finished a breakthrough senior season at LSU and harbored aspirations of continued success in the professional ranks.
Almost two decades later, Humphries is 40 years old and a lifetime removed from playing for a paycheck. He’s a father of three, a civil engineer at a company that builds high-voltage substations and transmission lines across the country – and as one may surmise based on those two facts alone, his golf calendar is extremely limited. He plays in one or two tournaments a year and occasionally takes a stab at qualifying for a USGA event if it happens to fit his schedule. Humphries plays so sparingly that his preparation for this year’s Louisiana State Amateur bordered on absolutely no preparation at all.
“I hadn’t picked up a club for nine months,” Humphries said in his soft-spoken southern accent. “The Saturday before the tournament, I went with my two sons to the course and rode around and played nine holes. That was my prep work … I’m the kind of guy who doesn’t need much to get loosened up. I’ve always hit the ball pretty well. Every golfer goes through peaks and valleys, but for the most part, the ballstriking part never changes for me.”
The past two Louisiana State Amateurs prove how much of a natural talent Humphries still is, 17 years removed from being a first-team All-SEC selection in college and 13 years removed from the Nationwide Tour (now the Korn Ferry Tour) season that convinced him he wasn’t going to make it in professional golf.
Two Sundays ago, Humphries emerged from a tightly contested tournament by shooting 5-under 67 on the final day, breaking the course record for the South Course at New Orleans’ Bayou Oaks at City Park. Birdies on two of the final three holes gave him a one-stroke edge on Eli Ortego, a junior golfer who will not graduate high school for another year. Not to mention, Humphries finished well ahead of incoming LSU freshman Nicholas Arcement (T5) and current LSU player Hayden White (T28).
In the previous iteration of the event a year ago, Humphries raced to a lead by starting 66-69 – by his memory, he only missed two greens throughout those 36 holes – and held off a recent high school graduate, Gage Primeaux, to win by two strokes.
The back-to-back victories mean Humphries is just the fifth player to win three Louisiana State Amateurs. He is the first to do so since 1968. The 16 years separating his victories in 2003 and 2019 is also a record for a tournament with a 101-year history.
“I think a lot of that is kind of what I did, playing in college and then playing professionally and then being an amateur again. Most people don’t get back into (amateur golf) but I was fortunate enough to get back into playing again.”
John Humphries
However impressive that may appear, those who know Humphries won’t be surprised to hear that he downplays the accomplishment.
“That’s pretty neat,” Humphries said. “I think a lot of that is kind of what I did, playing in college and then playing professionally and then being an amateur again. Most people don’t get back into (amateur golf) but I was fortunate enough to get back into playing again.”
Humphries’ journey to this point started with his father, Earl, who played at LSU in the early ’70s and briefly had PGA Tour status before he stopped playing due to back problems. Earl Humphries went to law school after his professional days were over, but continued to play as an amateur. From the time the younger Humphries could walk, he would join his dad and older brother, Jason, out on the course.
He developed into a strong player, leading Alexandria High School to two state championships before making the easy decision to join Jason at LSU. Although Humphries redshirted his freshman year while Jason was in his junior year, the two got to play together the following season.
“We were born and raised in Louisiana, so obviously we were huge LSU fans,” Humphries said. “There was no chance I was ever going to go anywhere else.”
Heading into his senior season, Humphries didn’t believe he would attempt to play professional golf. That changed when he registered six top-10 finishes, won the LSU Spring Invitational and tied for fifth at the SEC Championship. That summer he captured his first Louisiana State Amateur.
Humphries spent his first two years as a professional failing to get through PGA Tour Q-School and settling for smaller circuits like the Tight Lies Tour and the Hooters Tour. He qualified for the Canadian Tour (now the Mackenzie Tour-PGA Tour Canada) but struggles there led him back to mini-tours where he had a couple of runner-up finishes.
His breakthrough came three years into his pro career, when he advanced to the Final Stage of Q-School and received conditional status on the Nationwide Tour in 2007. However, that success was followed by a year in which he made but one cut in 15 events and earned just $1,468. He scored a combined 76-over par in 33 rounds.
“After that, I said ‘This is not the road for me, it’s time to find something else to do,’ ” Humphries said. “It was a slow bleed. I was missing cuts just barely early on, just a shot or two off. And then that started to eat into my game and into my mind.
“My belief faded. I started to question my game. You look at the guys that are successful and you say, ‘Well maybe I need to exercise more, take care of my body and hit it farther.’ I changed my putting philosophy. You start looking at all of these different things instead of what you are capable of doing. It just never worked.”
With pro golf behind him, Humphries thought he had two options: go to law school like his father did or go back to LSU to get another degree in something else. He landed on civil engineering, which was an area of study that interested him during his first stint in college but came with a course workload that would be difficult to manage while playing golf.
The civil engineering program required 135 credit hours, and only a few from his marketing degree transferred over. So he decided to be a full-time student, completing the degree in three years so he could get a job as quickly as possible. Now almost 10 years after attending LSU with his brother, Humphries went to school with his younger sister, Leslie, while she was an undergraduate.
After completing his degree, Humphries moved back to his hometown of Alexandria, Louisiana, where he has been ever since. By that point he had let go of golf almost completely; he played about three or four rounds total for the five years after his last professional season.
“It was good for me to have that time away from it,” Humphries said. “I still watched it, I was still a fan of it, but I just never really played.”
The first tournament he played as a restored amateur was in 2012, and he has maintained an ultra-light schedule as he focuses on his profession and being a dad to two young sons and one daughter. He qualified for the U.S. Mid-Amatur a year ago and has designs on qualifying for the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball alongside his brother, but any additional accomplishments in the game are far from a priority.
“Nowadays when I play golf, that’s vacation time,” Humphries said. “Whether you play good or bad, it’s fun just to get out on the golf course.”
It’s not a bad place to be, especially when you’re winning.
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