NORTH MYRTLE BEACH | Jason Perry didn’t have time to properly prepare because he was so busy with work, but he took a flyer nonetheless on qualifying for a major senior golf championship in the United Kingdom.
The North Myrtle Beach resident was one of 137 players vying for five spots July 8 at Firestone Country Club’s Fazio Course in Ohio for the $2.85 million British Senior Open.
The qualifier was sprinkled with former PGA Tour members including Omar Uresti, Guy Boros, Brad Adamonis and former Myrtle Beach resident Kris Blanks.
Yet Perry tied for second with a 6-under-par 64 and is scheduled to leave for Scotland on Friday.
The British Senior Open – a major on the Champions Tour that is also known as the Senior Open Championship – will be played on the storied and challenging Carnoustie Golf Links on the North Sea in Angus next Thursday to Sunday (July 25-28).
“I’ve always wanted to go to Scotland and play St. Andrews and Carnoustie as well, but I never thought I’d be going to play in a major championship over there in a senior event,” Perry said. “So it’s exciting.”
Winners of the event since 2012 include Bernhard Langer (3 times), Fred Couples, Migel Angel Jimenez, Darren Clarke and Alex Cjeka last year.
Lightning in a bottle
Perry has spent the past 10 years installing artificial turfs on the Grand Strand, the last two years for his own company JPS Custom Turf and Landscaping.
His business has been extremely busy this year, which has kept him from spending much time at golf courses.
But he turned 50 in February, and like many in golf who were good players but never reached success at the game’s highest levels, Perry eyed the half-century mark for several years with the anticipation of attempting to rejuvenate his pro playing career as a senior.
Though work has interfered with his commitment to it, the first step was a U.S. Senior Open qualifier on May 22 at River Landing Country Club in Wallace, N.C., where Perry shot 71 to tie for sixth out of more than 80 players and missed a playoff for a qualifying spot by two shots.
“I hit the ball very well, surprisingly, and I was like, ‘You know, I should look into trying to go to the British,’ ” Perry said. “And [the qualifier] was at Firestone, and I’ve always wanted to play Firestone. There’s a lot of history there and it’s a great facility.”
He made a mini-vacation out of the British qualifier, visiting and staying a couple hours-drive from Firestone with friend Stephen Gangluff, with whom he used to travel while touring, for a few days and playing the course a couple times through a Firestone member. Gangluff offered to caddy in the qualifier, as well.
That was the extent of Perry’s preparation for the qualifier, in which he made seven birdies and a bogey.
“I did not expect to go out there and shoot 64,” Perry said. “I actually hit it very poorly on the range the day before. But I somehow got it done. That’s what is exciting to me because I’ve played zero golf, really, and then to go shoot 71 at the U.S. [Senior] Open qualifier, then go to Firestone and shoot 64.
“I’m very surprised. That just doesn’t happen.”
At Firestone, Perry birdied the first hole, made seven pars in succession and birdied the ninth and 10th holes to reach 3-under par.
The bogey came on the 140-yard par-3 14th hole. “I knew my position at the time and was nervous and just hit a bad shot,” Perry said.
But Perry closed strong with birdies on the 525-yard par-5 17th hole, where he reached the green in two shots, and par-4 18th, where he hit a 6-iron to 7 feet, to avoid the playoff.
Perry played in the U.S. Senior Open qualifier as an amateur, but turned pro prior to the British qualifier just in case he plays well.
“If I were to get lucky and play well at Carnoustie, who knows?” said Perry, who will again have Gangluff on the bag in the major. “It’s not very likely, but we’ll see. It wasn’t very likely for me to shoot 64 at Firestone not playing, but we did, so funnier things have happened.”
Perry had regained his amateur status shortly before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic and planned to play in competitive amateur events in the Carolinas. But with the impacts of COVID and his burgeoning business, he rarely played.
The draw of the Strand
Perry is a native of Mount Airy, Georgia. He had some college golf offers but eschewed the collegiate game to turn pro as a teenager. “That’s a tough road. I’d like to go back and do it again knowing what I know now,” Perry said.
He has lived on the Grand Strand since 2000 after playing for several years on numerous mini-tours and international tours with the periodic help of some financial backers.
His professional golf highlight came when he Monday-qualified in 1998 for the PGA Tour’s BellSouth Classic in Atlanta, but it resulted in one of his career lowlights as well.
He said he accidently signed an incorrect scorecard after the first round and was disqualified. “So I learned a good lesson there,” Perry said.
He came to the Strand to play in a big-money calcutta golf event in 2000, won a sizable amount of money in it, and decided to stay.
“There was a lot of action going on in the area in golf, so I stayed,” said Perry.
This year, Perry has been playing recreationally a couple Sundays a month. His practice consists of swinging a weighted club in his home. “I try to swing every time I go by it,” Perry said. “I’ll look in the mirror, do some mirror work, and swing the weighted club. That’s about it.”
Perry will be gone 10 days, and having parted ways with a couple workers recently, he’s down to one employee who will take business calls and give estimates, and wait for Perry to return to work on the jobs.
Perry hopes to have a reason to further put his work off following the senior major.
A high finish – he believes a top-25 – will automatically qualify him for the next Champions Tour event, the $2.2 million Boeing Classic in Washington state Aug. 9-11.
Otherwise, he plans to attempt to weekly qualify for at least a couple Champions Tour events in October in Florida and North Carolina, and enter the Champions Tour qualifying tournament, where the top five players earn full status for the 2025 season.
“My intentions were when I turned 50 to try the Champions, and that still is my goal, so hopefully we can finish top 25 and roll onto the next week,” Perry said.
