Jerry Pate

Jerome Kendrick Pate (born September 16, 1953) is an American professional golfer on the PGA Tour Champions, formerly on the PGA Tour. As a 22-year-old rookie, he won the U.S. Open in 1976. Born in Macon, Georgia, he was one of six children in his family. His father and grandfather got him into golf early and the family spent summers in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, playing golf. At a young age, his family moved to Alabama, where Pate learned the game at Anniston Country Club. In 1967 his family moved to Florida because of Pate's fathers work. Pate grew up in the panhandle of Florida in Pensacola. Pate attended the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and played on its Crimson Tide golf team. Pate had a distinguished amateur career with a win at the U.S. Amateur in 1974, and was a member of victorious U.S. teams at the Eisenhower Trophy competition, also winning individually, later that year and at the Walker Cup in May 1975 at St Andrews in Scotland. A few weeks later, he tied Walker Cup teammate Jay Haas of Wake Forest for low amateur at the U.S. Open, finishing in a six-way tie for eighteenth place at Medinah, outside Chicago.