Judd Gibb
Iowan Judd Gibb's completes a Long and Winding Road to his First Major By Bob Denney PGA Historian Emeritus
The marine layer settling among the cypress trees at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco has cooled things this week for what will be a most unusual PGA Championship. Yet it couldn’t be a more appropriate setting for PGA Professional Judd Gibb of Fort Dodge, Iowa, to make his major debut. The 51-year-old PGA Head Professional at Lakeside Municipal Golf Course, who has suffered three near-misses trying to earn a PGA berth over a nearly 25-year career, got the break he needed in the midst of a pandemic. He will tee it up Thursday at 2:26 p.m. PT. Gibb is employing veteran local caddie, Danny Pepsi, who has worked the 2011 U.S. Open and the 2017 Open Championship. It’s his PGA debut, too.Together, Gibb and Pepsi will drink in the major experience. “It has been a strange three weeks,” said Gibb. “It began with worrying about the virus, then worrying if they would even have a (PGA) Championship. Once I got that (COVID-19) test on Sunday, I began thinking this was going to happen.” The first Fort Dodge golfer to compete in one of golf’s four Grand Slam events, Gibb finished 17th in the 2019 PGA Professional Player of the Year standings. With the PGA Professional Championship canceled in June in Austin, Texas, new criteria determined the berths of 20 PGA Club Professionals in the PGA Championship.
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Iowa PGA Golf Magazine - Fall/Winter Issue
Gibb earned enough points to play in the PGA by capturing his second Iowa PGA Section Championship, finishing T-25 in last year’s PGA Professional Championship and finishing runner-up in the Section Player of the Year race. Gibb is a five-time Section Player of the Year yet struggled over the closing holes of the PGA Professional Championship to miss a PGA berth in 2006, ’15 and last year. The good news came via an announcement on his phone on June 29, as Gibb was in a pro-am at Sunnyside Country Club in Waterloo. “I said to myself, ‘you better start playing a little more golf.” Gibb said he has enjoyed his practice rounds at TPC Harding Park, and that a spectator-less Championship will be oddly familiar. “With nobody out there,” he said, “it will have more the feel of a club pro championship except when you look around and see guys you see every week on TV.” Gibb, whose given name is Edward, has used his middle name - Judd - since he was in grade school. His mother gave it to him and that he never asked why. “I had an Uncle Ed, and I think the family got tired of us both looking at the same time when our names were called,” said Gibb. “Judd sounds more like a NASCAR driver. It’s easy to remember.” Gibb began playing golf at age 7. Three PGA Professionals -all at Fort Dodge Country Club -- had a role in Gibb’s development, including Bill Hurd—who Gibb called “Fort Dodge’s
