BLUEFIELD — John Ross has played golf with some of the best golfers in the world.

Think you can play with him? Can you beat the pro?

Your chance to find out will arrive on Friday at Wolf Creek Golf Course in Bastian. Ross won’t even have the benefit of a handicap, his opposition will.

“I will go out and play and I hope I have my ‘A’ game with me that day because trying to beat the amateurs with their full handicap sometimes can be tough and a challenge,” said Ross, a Bramwell resident, who has played on numerous professional golf tours since the early 1980s. “A portion of their entry fee will go towards helping me with my expenses toward the first stage of tour school.”

Ross, who has been absent this year from the Champions Tour, wants to get back out on the course, and that begins with the Champions (Senior) Tour Q-(Qualifying) School on Oct. 26-29 at the Palms Course at Disney World in Orlando, Fla.

“I have played that course many a-times,” Ross said. “I played there when the regular tour played there in the Disney Classic .”

There is a catch. While the top 13 to 15 players will advance from Orlando to the qualifying finals in Arizona in November, there is no money to be made in Florida, just money to be spent.

“The first stage of Q-school, all you have is expenses, there is no income that can be earned,” Ross said. “In the finals we do play for like a $300,000 purse which is dispersed to the top 30 finishers.”

To get that opportunity, Ross has to perform in Florida. To get to the Sunshine State, Ross needs the funds to help with expenses. His wife, Lynn, suggested “Beat the Pro”. Ross decided to give it a try and got the cooperation of Wolf Creek, which is where Ross was the golf pro from 1981-84.

“I would be tickled pink if I saw 50 people show up to play, but I just hope the weather is nice,” Ross said.

The plan is for Ross and Wolf Creek to host a 18-hole tournament on Friday, with a 12:30 p.m. shotgun start. The cost is $50 per person. Foursomes or single entries are welcome. Players are encouraged to call Wolf Creek golf pro Vince Zachwieja to provide names and their handicaps.

Zachwieja can be reached at Wolf Creek by calling (276) 688-4610.

“I hope it gives me a chance to reacquaint with some old acquaintances that I haven’t see in several years and hopefully meet some new faces,” said Ross, who has lived in the area since the early 1980s. “I hope to have an opportunity to answer any questions they might have about the lifestyle of a touring pro and what you are up against.”

Ross, who will turn 60 in April, simply wants to feed his passion for a game that has long been part of his life. He’s played on numerous tours, including the PGA Tour in 1992-93, the Nationwide Tour in 1990-91 (then the Ben Hogan Tour) and 1994-97, and has been part of the Champions Tour since turning 50 in 2002.

He’s also played in numerous mini-tours, including the Teardrop, Hooters, Tar Heel and many more.

“I will be 60 in April and I know the window is gradually closing, but as long as I feel like I have got health...and I still have a strong desire to compete too,” Ross said. “After all these years I might have thought it would begin to whittle way, but I still have the strong desire to compete at this level.

“If I don’t have it, I am going to be the first one to admit it and walk away from it and say thank you, I have enjoyed it.”

That moment hasn’t come. Ross played on smaller tours this year, shooting a 63 in Lake Placid, N.Y. to miss out on a playoff by one shot on the Sunbelt Senior Tour. He finished third in the West Virginia Open, and lost in a playoff qualifier for the Greenbrier Classic.

He attempted to qualify for five Champions Tour events, but fell short in all of them, including losing on the fourth playoff hole in Minneapolis the same week as the Greenbrier, only minutes after learning he had become a grandfather.

“I am still scoring fairly well and I am satisfied with the shape of my game,” Ross said. “I am just trying to work hard on my mental preparation right now. Going into the tour school, you are kind of going against the cream of the crop of those that want to get there and being tough mentally is sometimes that makes a difference.”

Without any type of status on the Champions Tour, Ross has to not only qualify for tournaments on the Monday prior to an event, but also has to pre-qualify for the qualifier.

If Ross can be successful in Florida and later in Arizona, he could actually set himself up for a full season on Tour without having to qualify at all. While the numbers aren’t set, Ross said between 13 and 15 players at three qualifying sites will advance to the TPC Course in Scottsdale in November to compete with other hopefuls for a limited number of spots.  

“Once you get to the finals, the low five finishers earn exempt cards and those players finishing 6-12 earn conditional cards,” Ross said. “Those players will get in a limited number of events, but they will have access to get in without having to qualify,

“Those finishing 13-30th will be exempt from the pre-qualifying and then enter straight into the Monday qualifying.”

Ross won’t be thinking numbers like that when he’s attempting to qualify. He just wants to score good, and see where he ends up.

“Rather than me thinking about the numbers of spots available, I try to focus on the numbers of the scores I want to shoot because I know if I go out and beat the golf course I will qualify,” Ross said. “I don’t have to worry about beating 70 other players, that will take care of itself.”

Ross credits much of his golfing success to Wolf Creek. He learned the game from Maurice Brackett, a golf pro in Raleigh, N.C., who also designed Wolf Creek.

With the help of Brackett and the late-Johnny Wilkinson, a local businessman and developer of Wolf Creek, Ross became the golf pro for three years before leaving for the same role with the Princeton Elks from 1984-87.

He made the PGA Tour in 1992-93, although ‘91 was the year when Ross first made his mark at the highest level of the game. He qualified for four events, and the U.S. Open. The highlight was being a Monday qualifier for the Greater Greensboro Open and playing a Saturday round with multi-major winner Payne Stewart.

“I think that was a catalyst that kind of jump-started my belief that God had given me the talent that I could compete at this level,” Ross said. “Payne had won a PGA, he was a major championship winner and he was coming back off some neck or shoulder problems that he was dealing with.

“He had just been back out for about a month and he was a very big inspiration to me and encouragement to me and he was somebody I really called a friend.”

Ross was able to earn his PGA Tour card the next two years, and had limited success in an era when the prize money in golf wasn’t close to what it is now.

“I wish I had had some better finishes back then, I think my first year on Tour I finished 141st on the money list and the top 125 were exempt,” Ross said. “It was only like $18,000 difference...

“Getting some tournament golf under my belt at that level in ’91, going into the qualifying that fall, I was kind of riding a wave of momentum. I finished 15th at the school and back then the top 30 earned Tour cards for the year.”

Ross is hoping to have similar success in Florida and Arizona and get exempt status on the Champions Tour. He is even tinkering with possibly trying to qualify for the European Senior Tour.

All of that is contingent on having the funds to help with expenses. He’s hoping area golfers will help him do just that, while seeing if they can ‘beat the pro’. Ross definitely won’t have the home course advantage.

“I have maybe played over there three times since I left there,” said Ross, who practices regularly as The Resort at Glade Springs, but does plan to play a round this week at Wolf Creek prior to Friday. “When I was over there the week before last talking to Vince I was just in awe of how big some of those trees have gotten that we planted that were waist high and now they are 80 feet tall.

“When I stand on these holes over there now, a lot of it is going to be almost like ‘I don’t remember this hole’.”

Golf is a difficult game. No one knows that better than Ross who has had success and failure on the course. He wants another chance to play with the best. To make that happen, Ross is willing to test his game against the rest.

“This game can beat you up mentally and you feel like a puppy dog with your tail between your legs after you have been scolded or hit with a newspaper,” Ross said. “This has been a difficult year not having some sort of status on the Champions Tour...

“I just want to let the people know for those who are free I would really appreciate their support and come out to play and just give me a chance to mingle with them.”

—Contact Brian Woodson

 at bwoodson@bdtonline.com