Kamaiu Johnson ended his first-ever round on a PGA tour on Thursday 6 over — a long way from the top of the Leaderboard at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am tournament. But the finish was also a very long way from where the 27-year-old middle school drop out started on a journey that began when he was 13 and moved in with his grandmother.

“Everything happens for a reason so her moving here pretty much saved my life,” Johnson said in a video the PGA posted on its Instagram account. 

His grandmother’s cramped two-bedroom apartment was on the edge of a public golf course in Tallahassee, Florida. “And golf saved my life as well.”

“From outside my apartment swinging a stick to playing on a PGA tour,” Johnson said in the video. “That means a lot.”

Jan Auger was playing golf with friends at the Hilaman Golf Course where she also worked as an assistant golf pro in 2007. She noticed Johnson and thought he was swinging a club. When it turned out to be a stick she decided to intervene.

“She could have come up and said, ‘Hey, you’re trespassing,’ or `Get back in the house before you get hit by a golf ball,’” Johnson said in an article posted on the PGA website. “Instead, she gave me a 9-iron and a bucket of balls.”

“When she did that, I found purpose in my life,” Johnson said.

Johnson, who lied about why he wasn’t in school on the day he met Auger, ended up getting his GED and found a second home at the golf course where his new friend let him help out in exchange for playing $1 per round.

Johnson also got a hand up from The Advocates Pro Golf Association Tour, which was founded in 2010 “to prepare African Americans and other minority golfers to compete and win at the highest level of professional golf.”

“I wouldn’t be here without the APGA,” Johnson said in the PGA article, adding that Ken Bentley, the CEO, and co-founder of the APGA, often helped him financially when the going got rough.

Johnson starting playing — and winning — tournaments and did well enough on the Advocates Pro Golf Association Tour that he was awarded a sponsor exemption into the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines.

But right as the golf world was opening the door the pandemic slammed it shut. Just before his PGA debut he tested positive for the coronavirus and missed the tournament.

But on Thursday he finally set foot on a PGA tour course.

“The ultimate goal is to be a regular out here,” the PGA article said.

“I can do it,” Johnson said. “For sure. I just have to keep grinding. I’ve come way too far to give up now. I’m in too deep. The biggest thing in life is to surround myself with good people.”

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