North Carolina State University Athletics
TIM PEELER: Late-Blooming Turnesa Sprouts on PGA Tour
3/6/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
BY TIM PEELER
What Turnesa, who played his final two collegiate seasons at NC State, wasn’t quite sure of was whether he would ever join the two former Wolfpack All-Americas at the highest level of professional golf.
It’s taken longer than he expected, but Turnesa is now a rookie on the PGA Tour with veterans Pettersson and Clark. He might have found out how he stacked up with the other two this weekend, since all three, for the first time, were set to participate in the same event at this weekend's PODS Championship at the Innisbrook Resort and Golf Club near
Turnesa and Pettersson are old friends. They arrived at the same time, a pair of transfers who knew little about the school or Raleigh. They roomed together at the College Inn their first semester at NC State, then moved to an apartment with Chris Mundorf and David Sanchez on
That’s a story that is quite familiar now to the 29-year-old Turnesa, who needed more than five years on the
Now, after seven early-season events, he’s made the cut four times and is wedged between Pettersson and Clark on the PGA Tour official money list with $105,949. That’s more than he earned two years ago playing 22 events on the Gateway Tour and a little less than half of what he made last season, when he finished No. 16 on the Nationwide Tour to earn automatically his PGA tour card for this season.
For Turnesa, success on tour isn’t just a dream come true, he’s also upholding a family legacy. His late grandfather, Mike Turnesa Sr., and six great uncles were all golf stars back before the PGA Tour was officially organized, winning dozens of professional tournaments between them.
“Those are genes you just can’t deny,” said long-time NC State golf coach Richard Sykes.
Turnesa’s grandfather and two brothers played in the first Masters at Augusta National. Mike Sr. spent 18 years on tour, winning six tournaments and finishing second to Ben Hogan in both the 1942 Hale America National Open (the World War II replacement for the U.S. Open) and the 1948 PGA Championship. Great uncle “Willie the Wedge” Turnesa was the only brother to never turn pro, but he won two U.S. Amateurs and the British Amateur. Great uncle Jim won 15 professional tournaments, including the 1952 PGA Championship, the family’s only major.
Marc’s father, Mike Turnesa Jr., has been the golf pro at Rockville Links Golf Club in
The younger Turnesa’s best finish so far is a tie for 22nd at the Northern Trust Open in
Last weekend, Turnesa shot rounds of 71-70-69-74 to finish in a tie for 38th at the Honda Classic, the first stop on the tour’s
Until two years ago, the native of
His future as a touring pro seemed bleak.
“But he never stopped working at it,” Sykes said. “He was not going to accept that he wasn’t going to make it.”
In 2006, Turnesa played on the Gateway Tour in
Last year, he graduated to the Nationwide Tour, golf’s Triple A. From the first tournament of the year, where he finished third, to the last event, which he won, Turnesa proved he could play with golf’s up-and-coming players.
At the season-ending Miccosukee Open in
That meant for this year, anyway he didn’t have to worry about Q-School.
“Marc is a good player, and he was a good player when he was here,” Sykes said. “He was as good as he could be at that time. But he’s gotten a lot better. Sometimes, it is not a quick process.”
Turnesa, who had a stroke average of 73.6 as a junior in 1999 and 73.8 as a senior in 2000, concedes that he’s a late-bloomer, especially for someone who grew up with a golfing legacy and such a wealth of knowledge about the game. But one thing all golfers know is that theirs is a game of patience.
“This whole thing has been a process for me, the same way it is for everybody,” said Turnesa, who finished tied for 22nd in the 2000 ACC Championship and 34th at the NCAA East Regional. “I am learning about the game every day. It didn’t come easy or quickly for me, the way it did for Carl or Tim. I’m not saying it was easy for them, but it did come pretty quickly.
“Being around those guys at NC State helped me as much as anything in my career. They were guys who were great players in college, and just being able to watch how they did it was helpful to me.”
Turnesa admits that it took him several years after he finished college to believe he was skilled enough to play with the likes of Pettersson and Clark not to mention Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and the other superstars of professional golf.
“Probably about 2006 is when I really started believing in myself,” Turnesa said. “And that’s at least half of the battle out here.”
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
