When he was just two years old, John Ellis spotted a Golf Digest
magazine lying on a coffee table at his family’s San Jose home and
kindly asked his babysitter to read it to him.
By Brett Edgerton Staff Writer
When he was just two years old, John Ellis spotted a Golf Digest magazine lying on a coffee table at his family’s San Jose home and kindly asked his babysitter to read it to him.
Almost immediately, Ellis was hooked on the sport of golf.
“When I was a young little guy,” he said, “there’s nothing else I wanted to do.”
Older and bigger now, Ellis turned 25 years old Wednesday, there’s still nothing he’d rather do.
That’s why he spent six hours of his birthday at Hollister’s San Juan Oaks Golf Club, host this week to the PGA-qualifying process known as “Q School” to golf fans.
The pressure-packed tournament, one of 13 going on around the country, lasts four rounds and includes 85 golfers competing in the first of three qualifying stages.
It’s a once-a-year opportunity for young professionals like Ellis.
“There’s huge pressure out there,” said tournament director Mike Sterling of Northern California PGA. “These guys are going for their jobs for the next year.”
The top 23 after Friday’s final round will move on to the next stage, which for Ellis would occur next week at Black Horse Golf Course in Seaside. After rounds of 70 and 71, he finds himself right at that 23rd spot, along with four other golfers.
“Sure it’s more pressure because of what’s at stake,” said Ellis, a 1998 graduate of Live Oak High and former Gavilan College student. “But I look at it as a learning experience. You have to treat it like any other tournament. The fairways aren’t moving out there.
“The only tough part is that it’s your only chance to get on the Tour. And anything could happen in just four rounds.”
Ellis, who led the Acorns to three state titles before starring at the University of Oregon, turned professional after graduating from Eugene in the summer of 2003.
In that time he’s played on just about every mini-tour out there – the Spanos Tour, the Hooters Tour, even in Montreal on the Canadian Tour.
“I’ll do them all,” said Ellis, whose childhood home sat right next to the 13th fairway at Santa Teresa Golf Course. “I’m just putting in my dues and playing wherever I can get a chance.”
With the number of off-the-radar opportunities out there these days, he noted that a golfer “can make a great living even if he’s not on the PGA Tour.”
Ellis realizes that’s not the goal, though. He knows that’s not the dream he and all the others are pursuing in Hollister this week.
PGA hopes are “why I’m out here practicing right now,” Ellis said from the practice green shortly after Wednesday’s round. “If you asked every one of the guys out here today, they’d say the same thing.”
Unlike most of the guys out there, though, Ellis knows what it’s like to walk the fairways of a PGA Tour event.
In February, he competed at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am – his first and only pro tournament, after advancing out of a group of 140 in a qualifying tournament the week before.
Even though he failed to make the cut and admitted to being “a little nervous,” Ellis said he was treated great and described the experience as invaluable.
“It helped a lot,” he said. “I realized I could play on the same course as the best golfers in the world.
“The hardest part was that it made me want to get back even more.”
So he’ll keep chugging on.
No matter what happens this week, Ellis said he’ll continue to find tournaments and continue to chase down his lifelong goal.
“If somewhere down the road I realize I’m not good enough, then I’ll hang it up,” he said. “Right now I’m not even close to thinking about that.”
That comes as no surprise to his father, Dave Ellis.
The Gavilan College instructor said golf was just something his son “was meant to do.”
“I really believe that,” he said.
Like most young golfers in his situation, Ellis has been through his share of frustration and doubt, according to his dad.
“He throws the clubs every once in awhile,” Dave Ellis said. “And a few times I’ve asked him, ‘Why don’t you just quit for a little while?’ Each time, though, he’s come back the next day ready to go.
“He really has a passion to play. He just loves the game.”
It was a fact evident all those years ago in his living room – even when Ellis stood shorter than his dad’s putter. More than two decades later, that fact undoubtedly still remains.
“I’m definitely sure,” Ellis said, “this is something I want to do the rest of my life.”
