Profile: PGA Tour Golfer Jerry McGee
Full name: Jerry Lynn McGee
Date of birth: July 21, 1943
Place of birth: New Lexington, Ohio
Date and place of death: March 31, 2021, in Orlando, Florida
His Biggest Wins
McGee is credited with four official wins on the PGA Tour:- 1975 Pensacola Open
- 1977 IVB-Philadelphia Golf Classic
- 1979 Kemper Open
- 1979 Sammy Davis Jr. Greater Hartford Open
In the Majors
McGee made 26 career starts in major championship (but never played in the British Open), all of them from 1970 through 1980. He had three Top 10 finishes in majors.His best finish in a major was tied for fifth place in the 1972 Masters, four strokes behind winner Jack Nicklaus. In the 1976 PGA Championship, McGee tied for eighth, and in the 1977 PGA Championship, he tied for sixth. Other good showings included tied 11th and tied 15th in the Masters Tournaments of 1978 and 1976, respectively; tied 13th in the 1971 U.S. Open; and tied 12th in the 1979 PGA Championship.
McGee scored a hole-in-one in the third round of the 1972 U.S. Open. And he also provided one of the great quotes about the difficulty of playing U.S. Opens: "Playing in the U.S. Open is like tippy-toeing through hell."
More About Jerry McGee
A multisport star in his Ohio youth, Jerry McGee turned to golf in his teens when friends took him to a golf tournament. He was 14 years old, and it was the 1958 Rubber City Open at Firestone Country Club. Arnold Palmer won the tournament in a playoff against Doug Ford, and young McGee found himself smitten with golf."From that day on," McGee said many years later, "I wanted to play professional golf."
And he did, after playing the local junior circuit and then playing on the golf team at Ohio State University. McGee turned pro in 1966 and made it through the PGA Tour's qualifying tournament that year.
His first start in a PGA Tour event was in his first year as a tour member, 1967. And one incident that happened to McGee during his rookie year is a story still sometimes told in golf books today, or in articles about "paralysis by analysis." As McGee told the story, after shooting 68 at a tournament, he was on the driving range striping ball after ball. An old pro — McGee always declined to identify him — stopped to watch, and then told McGee something along the lines of, "That was a great round you had today, but I don't see how you can keep it up with a grip like that." The old pro then walked away.
Suddenly, thinking about nothing but what could be wrong with his grip, McGee started spraying the ball everywhere. After the next round, he found the veteran pro and, pretending to be thankful for the warning about his grip, returned the favor. McGee asked the veteran to give him some more advice: "Tell me, do you inhale or exhale at impact?" And the next round, it was the gamesmanship-playing vet who struggled.
McGee first cracked the Top 100 on the money list at the end of the 1970 season, but at the time a golfer had to be in the Top 60 to avoid Monday qualifying. And in 1971, McGee cracked the Top 60 for the first time, finishing 46th on the money list. He would finish in the Top 60 eight of the next nine years.
The year 1972 was a very good one for McGee, even though at the end of it he was still looking for his first tour win. In the Sony Open that year, McGee won a car for the tournament's closest to the pin content. Then he won another one in the same fashion at the Byron Nelson Classic. And when the tour reached the IVB Philadelphia Golf Classic, McGee won two more cars — four cars total for the year. And along the way, McGee had his career-best showing in a major in the 1972 Masters.
His first PGA Tour victory finally happened in the 1975 Pensacola Open. With back-to-back 66s in the middle two rounds, McGee took a one-stroke lead into the final round. Then he won by two. He finished 1975 16th on the money list.
McGee was 16th again on the money list at the end of 1976, even though he didn't win that year. He lost a playoff to Raymond Floyd in the 1976 World Open Golf Championship, and placed second to Hubert Green in 1976 Sea Pines Heritage Classic.
In mid-March of 1977, during a frustrating final round of the Doral-Eastern Open, McGee kicked his putter head and badly hurt his big toe. It was a rare outburst by McGee, known as one of the most popular players on tour. The 1982 PGA Tour media guide said of McGee that "(h)is quick wit and ready smile made him a delight to be around. Even in the most adverse conditions or situations, he usually could find something humorous."
But he wasn't feeling humorous after hurting that toe in the 1977 Doral. Two weeks later he returned to the tour, but had to cut a hole in the shoe for that foot to relieve the pressure on that toe. For several weeks, he played with one toe sticking out of his golf shoe. Fellow pros nicknamed him "Bigfoot" or "Jerry the Toe."
But just a few months later, McGee got his second PGA Tour victory. It was in the 1977 IVB Philadelphia Golf Classic, by four strokes over runners-up Bob Shearer and John Lister. He also tied for second behind Al Geiberger in the 1977 Danny Thomas Memphis Classic, the tournament in which Geiberger became the first player in PGA Tour history to shoot 59. At the end of year, McGee was a career-best 15th on the money list.
But before the year ended, something else happened that McGee later called his greatest honor in golf: He played for Team USA in the 1977 Ryder Cup. McGee played two matches in what was the final Ryder Cup to feature Team Great Britain & Ireland (the USA opponent expanded to Team Europe in 1979). He teamed with Dave Stockton for a Day 1 foursomes victory over Neil Coles and Peter Dawson. In Day 3 singles, McGee lost to Peter Oosterhuis, 2-down.
His last two wins were both in 1979, first in the Kemper Open by one stroke over Jerry Pate. That tournament included his career-best round on tour of 61. McGee won again two months later in the Sammy Davis Jr.-Greater Hartford Open.
At the end of the 1979 season, McGee was 18th on the money list. But injuries and maladies soon afflicted him, and McGee fell out of the Top 100 in 1980 and 1981.
McGee had already accepted the position of director of golf at Oak Tree Country Club in West Middlesex, Pennsylvania, when he announced at the end of 1981 that he was leaving the PGA Tour. At the time, McGee ranked 42nd on the tour's all-time money list. His final appearance in any tour event was in 1983.
PGA Tour statistics show that McGee made 404 career starts on the tour. In addition to his four victories, he finished second five times, had 26 Top 5 finishes and 50 total Top 10 finishes.
McGee worked at Oak Tree for 12 years, until turning 50 in 1993. Then he decided to try the senior tour. He never won on the Champions Tour, though he played it for many years. His best senior circuit finish was tied for second in the 1997 BankBoston Classic.
In 1999, McGee underwent surgery for cancer, but was back on tour before the end of the year. He made another 130 senior starts after that surgery.
His final start on the senior circuit was in 2005. In 318 career senior starts, he had 29 career Top 10 finishes. McGee's best finish on the senior tour's season-ending money list was 25th in both 1994 and 1997.
Late in life, McGee became semi-famous again as the father-in-law of LPGA legend Annika Sorenstam. Sorenstam and Mike McGee married in 2009.
Jerry McGee was 77 years old when he died in 2021. He is a member of the Ohio Golf Hall of Fame.
Sources:
(Book titles are affiliate links; commissions earned)
Apfelbaum, Jim. The Gigantic Book of Golf Quotations, 2007, Skyhorse Publishing.
Brenner, Morgan. The Majors of Golf, Volume 3, 2009, McFarland and Company.
Doyle, Joe. "According to Doyle: Jake's Pupil Quits," The South Bend (Ind.) Tribune, May 24, 1972.
Elliott, Len, and Kelly, Barbara. Who's Who in Golf, 1976, Arlington House Publishers.
Murphy, Mike. "McGee Makes Specialty Out of Par-3 Holes," The San Bernardino (Calif.) County Sun, June 18, 1972.
Nash, Bruce, and Zullo, Albert. The Golf Hall of Shame, Pocket Books, 1989.
Ohio Golf Association. Ohio Golf Hall of Fame, Inductees, Jerry McGee, https://www.ohiogolf.org/hall_of_fame/inductees/jerry-mcgee.
PGA.com. "U.S. Open Holes in One: The Complete List of Aces," October 24, 2019, https://www.pga.com/story/us-open-holes-in-one-the-complete-list-of-aces.
PGA Tour. Players, Jerry McGee, Career, https://www.pgatour.com/player/01786/jerry-mcgee/overview.
PGA Tour. Senior PGA Tour 2002 Official Media Guide, Player Biographies, Jerry McGee.
PGA Tour. The Tour Book 1982, Player Biographies, Jerry McGee.
Radosta, John S. "Hard Times for McGee On the Pro Golf Tour," The New York Times, March 26, 1977, https://www.nytimes.com/1977/03/26/archives/hard-times-for-mcgee-on-the-pro-golf-tour.html.
Ross, Helen. "PGA Tour winner and Ryder Cup player Jerry McGee passes away at 77," PGATour.com, April 1, 2021, https://www.pgatour.com/article/news/latest/2021/04/01/pga-tour-winner-and-ryder-cup-player-jerry-mcgee-passes-away-at-77.
