Gene Elliott has an amateur golf résumé that stacks up with the best of them.
Elliott, 64, is one of only three players, along with Paul Simson and Chip Lutz, to win all three of the U.S. Senior Amateur (2021), the R&A Senior Amateur Championship (2021) and the Canadian Men’s Senior Championship (2017, 2019). He’s on a select list with the likes of Tiger Woods, Bobby Jones, Gene Sarazen and Ben Hogan as winners of R&A and USGA championships in the same year.
Elliott has also won three Iowa Amateurs, six Iowa Mid-Amateurs, four Iowa Senior Amateurs and two Iowa Opens. He’s a Porter Cup champion (1998), a Terra Cotta Invitational champion (1998), a two-time Coleman Invitational champion (2007, 2009) and a three-time Crump Cup winner (2013, 2018, 2019).
But Elliott has now achieved something more important than any of his victories. On March 16, Elliott underwent open-heart surgery for a second time after his cardiologist found Elliott’s aortic valve was severely leaking. And now, a little more than four months later, Elliott is back to walking the course and playing competitive golf.
“You can’t believe how quickly your strength is just gone,” Elliott said, reflecting on how he felt immediately after surgery. “My wife had to shower me and dry me off. After about 10 days I showered by myself and she handed me a towel. God, it felt like a 50-pound weight.”
Elliott was born in Fairfield, Iowa, before his family moved to Bettendorf when he was 10. He learned the game at Crow Valley Country Club, site of the PGA Tour’s Quad Cities Open from 1971-74, playing from morning to dusk. Around the time Elliott started high school, a new pro began working at Crow Valley.
“He was supposed to be something really hot,” Elliott recalled. “His dad won the Masters. It was Butch Harmon.”
“Somebody said to me if you’re good enough they can’t keep you off the tour. I guess I wasn’t quite good enough.”
Gene Elliott
Harmon, who went on to coach Greg Norman, Tiger Woods and other top tour pros, nicknamed Elliott “Mantis” because he thought Elliott looked like a praying mantis when he waggled the club. Just being around Harmon made him a better golfer, Elliott said.
After winning the state high school individual championship and the Western Junior in 1980, Elliott realized he might have a future in golf. He earned a full scholarship to the University of Iowa but says his game didn’t get a whole lot better during his time there.
After college, Elliott moved into his parents’ condo in Florida to pursue a pro career. He reached out to an instructor he was interested in working with, who told Elliott to come spend a week with him.
“That guy was David Leadbetter,” Elliott said. “So I started working with him, and in the summer of 1984 I got much better.”
Elliott won the 1985 Iowa Open and 1986 Missouri Open. After just missing out on his PGA Tour card in ’86 via Q-School, Elliott spent the next few years grinding on the Canadian and European tours. In 1988, he won the Quebec Open and finished 10th on the tour’s money list. But the next year, Elliott decided to leave professional golf and join the family business.
“I have no complaints,” Elliott said. “Somebody said to me if you’re good enough they can’t keep you off the tour. I guess I wasn’t quite good enough.”
Elliott has since become the CEO of Elliott Equipment Co., growing it from a small company in Iowa to one that covers multiple states. But to get to where he is today, Elliott largely gave up golf for a couple years after his professional career while he learned the business.
“I went from playing 200 rounds a year to five,” he said.
It was Mike McCoy, whom Elliott had known since high school, who spurred Elliott back into competitive golf. McCoy, who went onto win the 2013 U.S. Mid-Amateur, 2022 R&A Senior Amateur Championship and 2025 U.S. Senior Amateur, was playing on the mid-amateur circuit and wanted Elliott to join him.
“In hindsight he wanted a running mate to go with him.” Elliott said. “And so we were kind of joined at the hip for two decades probably.”
Elliott regained his amateur status in 1995. Three years later, Elliott won the Porter Cup and the Terra Cotta Invitational. In 1999, he was medalist at the U.S. Amateur at Pebble Beach.
“Basically the Amateur was a test run for the U.S. Open the next year,” Elliott said. “They had it set up so hard. You couldn’t hit a 7-iron out of the rough. I shot even-par and I was medalist. I actually heard that they toned it down for the U.S. Open.”
In 2003, Elliott met his future wife, DaLena, whom he married in 2008 and who has since become what he describes as his “caddie extraordinaire.” While DaLena didn’t know much about golf to start, the game quickly became something that strengthened the couple’s bond.
“We work together, we play together, we golf together,” DaLena said. “I always wanted to learn how to play because it’s something you can do together forever.”
DaLena has come a long way since handing Elliott the wrong clubs and dragging a pull cart across the green. She was on the bag when Elliott won the 2021 R&A Senior Amateur at England’s Ganton Golf Club, a championship they almost didn’t attend due to COVID-19.
Later that year, Elliott won the U.S. Senior Amateur at the Country Club of Detroit, his first USGA championship victory in 36 tries.
Elliott had shoulder surgery in 2022 and foot surgery in 2023. But neither of those were as serious as his two heart surgeries.
“I feel like I’m leading the league in surgeries,” Elliott said.
On Valentine’s Day 2000, his mother’s birthday, Elliott had an aneurysm and his aorta dissected. He required emergency surgery, which went well. Since then, Elliott has needed yearly checkups and tests on his heart.
Over the last few years, Elliott’s aorta had been getting bigger but no immediate action was needed. Then, late last year, Elliott wasn’t feeling great. He underwent a heart MRI in January.
“A few days later [my cardiologist] called me up and said your aortic valve is severely leaking and we have to go in,” Elliott said.
It was a terrifying development for Elliott and DaLena.
“I was scared because he always said I’ll never make it through another [heart surgery],” DaLena said.
After taking a little time to assess options, Elliott decided he wanted the Cleveland Clinic’s Dr. Lars Svensson, who repaired Nick Faldo’s aorta in January, to perform his surgery. On March 16, he was wheeled into the operating room.
Elliott becomes emotional when he recounts waiting in the room and the nurse who comforted him.
“I said I’m scared,” Elliott said. “She patted me on the head and told me I was going to be fine. I felt a lot better when she said that.”
After the successful surgery, in order to build up his strength from zero, it was Elliott’s job to walk as much as he could, which he did in his kitchen and great room a couple of times a day. The doctors said he shouldn’t swing a golf club for eight to 10 weeks.
“I said yeah, I think they’re being a little cautious,” Elliott said.
Six weeks after the surgery Elliott was hitting pitch shots into a simulator, and he worked his way up to the driver at about 10 weeks. And from June 25-27, Elliott walked 54 holes in his return to competitive golf at the George C. Thomas Invitational at Los Angeles Country Club, which isn’t the easiest course to walk.
While in Los Angeles, Elliott and DaLena put together a gift for fellow senior amateur Jack Hall, who is currently undergoing chemotherapy treatment for lymphoma discovered in early May. Elliott says Hall was going to come to his surgery but Elliott told him not to. Hall settled for calling Elliott every five or six days after the surgery to encourage him.
So when Elliott heard about Hall’s cancer, he was devastated.
“His life flipped instantly to survival,” Elliott said. “Now I was on the other end encouraging him. My surgery had a 5 percent mortality rate, 95 percent chance of success. If I survive, things should go back to normal after recovering. Jack’s case is totally different. He’s doing chemo and going through hell every day.”
The Elliotts sent Hall a canvas wine bag that was signed by friends and competitors in the field, many of whom also wrote personalized notes.
“It’s our golf family,” DaLena said. “You rally around each other.”
Two weeks ago, Elliott withdrew from the R&A Senior Amateur because he wasn’t feeling well. However, he says he’s feeling better now and is ready to resume pursuing his golf goals. At the top of the list: catch Simson and Lutz, who both have six combined Canadian, R&A, and U.S. Senior Amateur titles. Elliott has four.
“They will be tough to catch,” Elliott said, “But that’s what I’m chasing.”
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