If there’s an antidote to some of the carnage and bitterness that has become the soundtrack to elite golf, it might be found in an English journeyman’s remarkable adventure abroad.
In general, people will never have heard of JJ Grey. That goes for those in the game as well as out of it, but this week a path that is both sad and wonderfully uplifting has led him to the US Open in Los Angeles.
There’s a multitude of details behind it, and they include the tragic suicide of a close friend, the sale of socks and a life-changing act of generosity, but perhaps it’s best to start with a number – Gray is ranked 3,686th in the world.
To understand how he got from there to here, it is necessary to split his story into two phases and start at the end. That means we have to go back to last Monday, to the Hawks Ridge Golf Club in suburban Atlanta, where he ended up over a 4ft downhill slide.
Gray had already played 35 holes that day, which is the nature of US Open qualifying, where a diabolical labyrinth of regional tournaments offers the tiniest of doors to the show.
Britain’s JJ Grey, ranked 3,686th in the world rankings, has qualified for the US Open tournament
The 30-year-old is supported by the family of Sam Asbury, a friend who committed suicide
At the time, Grey, a 30-year-old professional from Ashurst Wood who earned just $24,703 (£19,772) from 29 tournaments in 2022, had played the two rounds of his life and needed that nasty little putt to drop to the last of three places.
“I had seen the cameras about five holes into my second round and then I knew I had to get it right,” he says Mail sports. “I had shot 64 in the morning, but I tried to avoid any distractions, even at recess.
“By the time I got to the last nine holes I was starting to get really tired mentally. I started to think I had an opportunity to make it, but I say to my caddy (Josh Edgar), ‘Let’s just get through it, don’t throw it away’. He told me to take a breather. I knew what I was playing for.’
It all came down to the kind of putt you’d never want to bet on, but Edgar’s eye picked up the right line, Gray addressed his ball—the one with the initials S and F written on it—and he rolled his way into the U.S. open . Then the tears began, which brings us to the first part of his story.
Gray’s career is the kind that suits the many and not the few.
“When I tell people I’m a professional golfer, they immediately assume that what they see on TV is the same across the board,” he says. “But it really isn’t for many of us.” Grey, called Jonathan James but JJ for as long as he can remember, grew up as a child with a dream and was always a good golfer. He played for Sussex as a junior, Kent as an Under 21. Eleven years ago, he moved to the US College system at Georgia State on a scholarship.
That brought him to tournaments with Justin Thomas and Scottie Scheffler, among others, but he was not at their level. Crucially, though, he struck up a close friendship there with a golfer on his team named Sam Asbury.
“We were good friends almost immediately,” says Gray. “We only had one year together as teammates before he moved to school, but we always kept in touch.”
As the years passed, they talked about Gray’s attempts to make it in professional golf and all the difficulties that came with it. He had begun the relentless slog of mini-tours at the base of a great pyramid, but after season after season of limited progress, it was almost time to give up, especially with the birth of his first child nearly five years ago.
More than a decade ago, Gray moved to Georgia State’s US College system on a scholarship
“I took another job for a while,” he says. ‘My wife is a lawyer now, but she was still studying law. I went to work in an outdoor sports store where I sold hiking gear, raincoats and socks and whatever, because I barely made any money.’
It’s the kind of frustration that was behind a conversation he had with his mate one night three years ago. “I was around him and was just telling him how I felt I was reaching the end of golf,” he says. “It started to feel like I was a burden to my wife and kids.”
It’s a conversation that will stay with Gray because two weeks later, in February 2020, he received a terrible phone call. His friend committed suicide.
“I found out the night it happened,” he says. “It was just the worst. No one had any idea he was going through anything.’
There is a deep sigh from Gray, and with it the wider context to his place at the US Open.
“A few days after everything with Sam, his dad told me that Sam, completely unknown to me, had asked him to help me with my golf. I had no idea they had spoken, but his parents said they wanted to sponsor me and they wanted me to think of it as Sam sponsoring me.’
As he ponders the role kindness played in last Monday’s events, Gray shakes his head. Their money kept him in the game for the past three years of grafting and grinding on the fringe circuits, finally allowing him to land his week in the sun in LA.
He admits he could only enjoy his week in LA with the support of the Asburys
“It’s insane what they did for me,” he says. “Flights, accommodation, entry fees, things like that — they supported me. It helped me get to the Korn Ferry Tour last year (a feeder circuit for the PGA Tour) and to do a year there can be at least $50,000. If you get a hotel for $100 a night, that’s $700 for the tournament. A rental car will cost another $500. Caddy rental. To flee. If you don’t get a discount, and I missed most of them, you don’t get paid.
“I just wouldn’t go to the US Open without the help of the Asburys and also the support of my wife – we have two kids and I’ve been chasing this. I’m so happy, but I know I’m also very lucky.’
It was a message he tried to share on television in the wake of qualifying at Hawks Ridge, but he had to fight back tears. It’s also a thought he remembers when he writes those S and F initials on each of his golf balls – they stand for the Sam Asbury Foundation, created to support people with mental health issues. He will use them at the US Open.
“Of course I would have preferred my boyfriend to the money,” he says. “But this has really been a blessing that came out of something terrible.”