In golf nerd Chase Johnson's wizarding world, pro success is his destiny

If you were a friend to pre-teen Chase Johnson in the late aughts, it would have boosted your relationship to share one or two keen interests of his: golf (and more specifically Tiger Woods), and anything related to Harry Potter. A self-proclaimed “nerd” from a young age while growing up outside Akron, Ohio, Johnson remembers a birthday party in which he set up game systems on TVs throughout his house to engage his playmates. One was “Tiger Woods PGA Tour” and the other “Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup.”

Didn’t like those? Go eat cake.

“I would say I was honestly dead equal at that age,” the now-27-year-old Johnson said recently of his devotions. “I played both games religiously.”

To this day, Johnson listens to Harry Potter books while he practices golf, but that’s the hint right there about which has been more ultimately meaningful in his life. A young wizard at Hogwarts has provided hours of fantasy escape, but with Woods as his idol, Johnson went all in to be a professional golfer years ago, and he’s already had real-life experiences to surpass any video game.

In a breakthrough 2023 campaign, Johnson has won three times and finished second twice in the last five events held on the Advocates Professional Golf Association (APGA) tour, the circuit that affords mostly minority golfers the opportunity to compete and grow at the professional level. In all, he's 9-for-9 this season in top-5 results. 

The victories followed another significant triumph in June, when the Kent State alum captured the John Shippen Invitational for Black golfers, earning him a sponsor’s exemption into the PGA Tour’s Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit. And in only his second tour start, Johnson opened with two 70s to make the cut and shot 68 on Saturday, before fading with a 73 on Sunday to tie for 64th.

Thanks to his September APGA Farmers Insurance Fall Series win at Cincinnati, Johnson got another PGA Tour exemption, which comes early next month at the World Wide Technology in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. And at least three more big opportunities await on the APGA for the West Palm Beach, Fla., resident: the Billy Horschel Invitational starting Wednesday at Concession Golf Club; the Fall Series closer in Tustin, Calif., where Johnson can secure the three-event title; and the Bermuda tournament in late October, with the champion getting into the PGA Tour’s Butterfield Bermuda Championship.

Johnson’s long and successful string is tinged with one recent setback. Last week in the first stage of PGA Tour Qualifying School, he missed advancing by four shots after being inside the bubble through 36 holes. The result means that, barring a top finish in his late-season PGA Tour opportunities, Johnson likely faces more Monday qualifiers and plenty of starts on the APGA in 2024.

“It will make him stronger,” Kyle VanHise, Johnson’s Miami-based instructor and mentor, texted in the immediate aftermath. “He had six hours to cry in his beer. No excuses. It’s only one path to many of his goals.”

VanHise became a devout believer in Johnson over the last 18 months as they started to work more together on what became a complete examination of the golfer’s game. With what VanHise describes as an unorthodox swing that produced a consistent 48-yard draw/hook, Johnson still managed to earn his Korn Ferry card for the 2020 season that extended into ’21 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In his second start, Johnson held the Sunday clubhouse lead in Colorado, only to be overtaken late by none other than a junior golf rival of the same age, Will Zalatoris, who parlayed the victory into a U.S. Open start at Winged Foot, where the new tour sensation made an ace and tied for sixth.

Johnson’s year went in the opposite direction, with only nine cuts made in 32 starts—results that caused him to examine every part of what he was doing. “Even when I was out there, I felt raw,” Johnson said of the KFT experience. “There were shots I knew I didn’t have. I felt like I had to play perfect golf in order to score. It was gritty golf.”

When VanHise first saw Johnson hit balls on the range, the instructor said he could only take in a few shots before walking away. His assessment to the player’s face was rather brutal: “I can’t watch because I’ll throw up in my mouth,” he needled.

What Johnson and VanHise eventually worked on was to make him what they call “Chase Perfect.” They eliminated the big draw and got him fitted out of clubs that only exacerbated his swing issues. With the diagnostic help of his fiancée, Katie Howarth, who has two master’s degrees, including one in physical training, Johnson addressed issues with his hips and shoulders. In the end, he came to fully understand how his swing worked. “I turned the Trackman numbers into feel,” he said.

When Johnson heard from friends that he should give the APGA tour a shot in 2023 because of its considerable prize money and quality venues, he felt fully prepared, physically and mentally. Johnson, who hadn’t won a significant tournament since the 2015 Northern Amateur, saw his patience tested early when he posted three seconds and a fifth before his first APGA win. “I was asking if they had a record for second-place finishes,” Johnson joked. After the breakthrough victory, he went second-first-second-first and now leads the season-long race that would earn him a $25,000 bonus for finishing on top.

Johnson has shot 66 or better six times on the APGA this season, including two 63s and back-to-back 65s at TPC Scottsdale that didn't even earn him a win because Kamaiu Johnson scorched the WM Phoenix Open course with 61-65. There's a budding rivalry for Johnson with Marcus Byrd, who claimed three APGA wins early in the season and advanced out of the KFT First Stage qualifier where Johnson missed out.

“It’s a been a blast,” Johnson said. “I’m really glad I built my schedule around the APGA. Getting to know the players out there, it’s been awesome.”

VanHise said he believes the APGA performances are exactly in line with Johnson’s budding potential, and that he’s only beginning to see what his upside can be.

“Winning is huge; it validates him,” VanHise said. “I’ve told him he’s doing what he’s supposed to be doing. This isn’t the PGA Tour. His talent level is good enough to beat PGA Tour players, without question. I know he’s going to win on the [PGA] tour. I just don’t how many or by how much. If he’s ‘Chase Perfect,’ you can’t stop him from winning.”

If Johnson has become something of a competitive menace on the APGA, he is almost impossible to dislike in the clubhouse. An only child who is good-natured, personable, and well-spoken, he seems to be a man who could befriend almost anybody. “I was a golf nerd, a gaming nerd, a sports nerd; I’m a mutt,” Johnson said with a laugh. “In high school I was part of every clique. I could literally communicate with every single person.”

His father, Mel Johnson, falls solidly into the golf geek category. As a high school football player, Mel once tried hitting a golf ball on a bet and failed so badly he didn’t think about the game for another decade. Then he heard some guys at work talk about reading greens and became intrigued. He taught himself through books, spending a year on the range before getting on the course, and by the time Chase was born, Dad was fully hooked.

They both tell the stories of Mel handing his son a club before he could walk, and when the father came home from work at a company that makes wheels for 18-wheel trucks, he changed into a golf outfit, whether he was playing or not. The ensemble always included a glove hanging out of Mel’s back pocket. “They called me the man with the third hand,” Mel says now with a laugh. “I was always ready to swing a club.”

Said Chase, “How obsessed are humans with breathing? He literally eats, sleeps and breathes golf. I can’t say it any more accurately than that.”

Chase had the genes to be a natural athlete, with his mom Cheryl having played numerous sports, and when the boy was 4, Mel sought out lessons for him. Instructors refused to accept such a young kid, however, and those included a legend of the women’s game, Renee Powell. Mel, though, does says that Renee’s father, William Powell—the first Black owner of a golf course in America—took an instant interest in Chase and followed them for nine holes at the Powells’ course in Canton, Ohio.

In truth, as Johnson worked his way through The First Tee Akron program, the biggest influence on the Johnsons came from Earl and Tiger Woods. The family bought the movie “The Tiger Woods Story,” and Chase wore it out. “The amount of facts I know about Tiger Woods is ridiculous,” Chase said. “I have so many of his shots memorized and I’ve watched all of his 82 wins on YouTube. I was focused and determined and all of it stuck.”

Mel took some pages from Earl Woods’ book of coaching by having Chase shape shots around obstacles. He squirted his son with water if rain was forecast for a tournament, and said he once paid kids to watch Chase play to give him a sense of performing in front of a gallery. At home, Mel conducted “interviews” with Chase at a podium, the boy’s stuffed animals serving as reporters.

The Tiger Woods video game awarded trophy balls, and Mel came up with “Daddy Trophy Balls” to motivate Chase. It worked masterfully. Yu-Gi-Oh! Cards were the treasured prize—at least until tournament trophies were available. “I remember when I won my first medal; then I was obsessed with winning stuff,” Chase said.

In more than 20 years rooting for Woods, there is one indelible disappointment for Chase. Every year, he and Mel attended the PGA Tour’s World Golf Championships event at Firestone Country Club in Akron, where Woods won eight times. One year, Chase—decked out in Nike gear and looking like a mini Tiger—stood against a short fence near a walkway the players used. Just as Woods came by and reached to sign his hat, the crowd surged from the back and pushed hard enough to topple the barrier. Chase remembers Tiger scampering back, and then he was gone. “I was so mad at every person behind me,” Chase recalled. “I thought it just wasn’t meant to be.

“That fence still haunts me,” he added. “I have these very lucid dreams that I finally get Tiger’s autograph, and then I wake up and think I’ve misplaced it. And I realize it was just a dream.”

There are our dreams that come in our sleep and others we concoct with our eyes wide open. Chase Johnson says his mission became clear when his first-grade class was asked what they’d like to be when they grew up. “I said a professional golfer,” Chase recalled, “and the teacher came up to me and said, ‘You don’t have to be what your parents want you to be.’ And I said, 'Mrs. Dvorak, I want to be a professional golfer.’ And that has never wavered.”

A lifetime of sweat and ambition melded on June 29, 2023, when Johnson teed off in the final grouping on Thursday of the Rocket Mortgage Classic at Detroit Golf Club. “It felt completely different being out there,” Johnson said. “This whole year, mentally and physically, felt completely different than any of other I played.”

In the Detroit gallery, Chase’s parents marveled at his every shot. “You can’t help but cry,” Mel Johnson said, his voice quavering. “That was the goal we worked on from the age of 1. So, from then until now, when he got into the Rocket Mortgage … I went back and looked at those videos [of a toddler] and, my god, I can’t express the words I have for it.”

The father got a kick out of seeing the crowd respond to Chase, though he’d like his son to be more "dramatic." “I’ve told him to always look at those people who come out to see you. Don’t disappoint them,” Mel said.

At 27, Johnson is playing against the clock to reach the PGA Tour. Zalatoris’ success before his back surgery this year served as motivation, but there aren’t a lot of rookies on the PGA Tour in their late 20s, and there’s still the talented Korn Ferry crowd to wrestle once he gets back there. The life, Johnson said, “is not for the faint of heart.”

There is strong belief in the Johnson camp that Chase will become a prominent PGA Tour player. VanHise, the instructor, is as no-nonsense as they come and not one to gush with platitudes. Yet, he’s sold on Johnson’s future. “He’s going to be on the tour; it’s not if, but when. I have the faith,” VanHise said.

More than a desire to see Johnson compete against the best. VanHise has a grander vision for what the “nerd” who can manage his way through any clique could do for the game. “I want to see what he does with this platform,” he said. “The amount of people he’s going to help and influence will be incredible. Who is the one kid that, because he met you, his life was changed forever?”