When Rusty Strawn, the 2022 U.S. Senior Amateur champion, learned last fall that he’d be inducted into the National Senior Amateur Hall of Fame as its 2025 honoree, he was so surprised he almost fell to his knees.
“It’s so humbling,” Strawn said. “Never in my life did I think I’d accomplish this. Not that I didn’t work hard and have a lot of success but I never thought I’d be recognized in a hall of fame.”
Strawn, 62, is a lifelong amateur who never had the desire to turn pro. He says after he found out about his hall of fame induction, he immediately thought of the people who made big impacts on his life. His dad who taught him golf. His family for whom he gave up competitive golf for more than 20 years. A native Georgian, Strawn says he wanted to follow in the footsteps of the great Bobby Jones.
“Jones was able to have such a great amateur career,” Strawn said. “He was a great businessman and a good family man. That really appealed to me.”
Strawn says he fell in love with golf because it allowed him to spend time with his father, Norman, who played the game in college.
“He was my hero and my mentor,” Strawn said.
Strawn says he grew up playing on a small, public golf course without any formal instruction. However, he loved spending hours on the range to improve his game.
“If I was going to be the father and husband I needed to be, if I was going to run a successful company, I was going to have to put golf on the back burner.”
Rusty Strawn
“I feel like I had to probably work a little harder than some of my friends who had a bit more natural talent than I did,” Strawn said.
Strawn spent a year at Alabama’s Alexander City Junior College, where he played with future PGA Tour pros Gene Sauers and John Huston. After the school finished runner-up in the junior-college national championship, he transferred to Georgia Southern. Strawn says college prepared him for life, both professionally and as an amateur golfer.
“If there’s anything college golf teaches you it’s time management,” Strawn said.
After graduating, Strawn went into business with his father, who owned an insurance brokerage firm. He played amateur golf and even won a Georgia State Mid-Amateur. However, Strawn found it increasingly difficult to work and play competitively.
“I was really starting to come into my own on the course but I found it really difficult to balance everything,” Strawn said.
The balancing act became impossible after he married his wife, Jennifer, and had three kids: McKenzie, Taylor and Anna. Strawn says when he was at work he wanted to be on the golf course and when he was on the golf course he felt he should be working or at home. He had to make a difficult decision.
“If I was going to be the father and husband I needed to be, if I was going to run a successful company, I was going to have to put golf on the back burner,” Strawn said.
While Strawn stepped away from competition, he always wanted to play golf with his kids, but none of them seemed to take a liking to it. That changed when Taylor was in eighth grade. Strawn remembers her telling him and his wife out of the blue that she was joining the golf team.
“Jennifer and I looked at each other like, ‘She’s gonna do what?’” Strawn said. “When she told me that was music to my ears.”
Taylor says growing up, she saw the trophies around the house, but never really understood Strawn’s love for golf. This changed when she started playing.
“I really enjoyed getting to spend time with my dad,” Taylor said. “He was great to play with. He was serious in the sense that he was very respectful of the game. He always wanted me to take it very seriously and play it with integrity.”
As his kids got older and finished college, Strawn started feeling the itch to return to competitive golf.
“I kind of felt like I had some unfinished business left on the golf course from a competitive level,” Strawn said.
His family noticed Strawn’s eagerness to return, and they supported the decision.
“We knew as soon as he turned 50 that it was imminent,” Taylor said.
Knowing he could start playing senior amateur golf at 55, Strawn hired a swing coach, a sports psychologist and a personal trainer.
“The ultimate goal was to win the U.S. Senior Amateur,” Strawn said.
He returned in 2019 with some good results, but says he truly felt back at the 2021 U.S. Senior Amateur at the Country Club of Detroit, where he lost in the quarterfinals.
“I walked away from that event in Detroit, while I was very disappointed, it really gave me some confidence moving forward,” Strawn said. “I knew I could compete.”
“I’m so humbled and appreciative of the recognition but I feel an obligation to give back now.”
Strawn arrived prepared for the 2022 U.S. Senior Amateur at the Kittansett Club in Marion, Massachusetts. Three months before the tournament, he spent two days on the course doing reconnaissance work. His hard work and scouting paid off, and Strawn won the title, defeating Doug Hanzel, 3 and 2, in the final.
“It was a long week but it was a very fulfilling week, too,” said Strawn, whose banner 2022 season also included victories in the Canadian Senior Amateur and Trans-Miss Senior Championship.
Strawn was honored last week in conjunction with the National Senior Amateur Hall of Fame tournament at North Carolina’s High Point Country Club, where he was one of 41 competitors in the senior division field. Now that he’s in the hall of fame, Strawn says he wants to give back to the game. He especially wants to promote junior and adaptive golf in Georgia.
“I want to give back now because I have taken so much from this game,” Strawn said. “I’m so humbled and appreciative of the recognition but I feel an obligation to give back now.”
Taylor says she couldn’t be prouder of her dad, and promises to teach her daughter the game like her dad taught her. The 2023 winner of the club championship at Augusta Country Club, Taylor says everyone at the club recognizes her not just because of her skill, but because of her father, too.
“I love always being known as Rusty Strawn’s daughter,” Taylor said. “No matter where I go, everybody knows who my father is.”
E-MAIL EVERETT
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Jeff Haynes, USGA