Fairway To Heaven

Death Of ’05 U.S. Junior Runner-Up Johnson Reminder That Life’s A Precious Commodity

By David Shefter

Far Hills, N.J. - Missing a 2-foot putt to win a match can be devastating. Not qualifying for match play at a USGA championship can be gut-wrenching.

But those hardships or momentary setbacks pale in comparison to the precious commodity known as life. When placed into that context, golf suddenly doesn’t feel so vitally important.

The 156 competitors who are assembled this week at Rancho Santa Fe (Calif.) Golf Club for the 59th U.S. Junior Amateur Championship hopefully can put the game into perspective, especially in light of the tragedy that occurred within their ranks this past March.

Bradley Johnson of Birmingham, Ala., was supposed to be a part of the Junior Amateur field. The 17-year-old rising senior at Spain Park High School played brilliant golf last July at Longmeadow (Mass.) Country Club, advancing all the way to the 36-hole championship match before dropping a 5-and-3 decision to Kevin Tway, the son of 1986 PGA Championship winner Bob Tway.

This would have been Johnson’s third Junior. He also qualified in 2004 at The Olympic Club when he reached the third round of match play. Prior to his Junior run in ’05, Johnson advanced to sectional qualifying for the 2005 U.S. Open, quite an achievement for a then-16 year old. The American Junior Golf Association named him an All-American. He was a kid with a bright future.

But on March 25, Johnson died in a two-car automobile accident in Shelby (Ala.) County. The tragedy stunned the community and the golf world. Athletic events at Spain Park were postponed for a couple of days as the school mourned the loss of one its best athletes.

Brad Johnson had his characteristic smile at the awards ceremony after finishiing as the runner-up at the 2005 U.S. Junior. (USGA photo archives)

Several students got together and painted a mural in his parking space. The picture has Johnson standing with his golf bag as he enters the gates of heaven.

Spain Park’s Student Government planted a tree in the school courtyard with a memorial sign and held a ceremony in his memory.  The school also created a Junior Class Character award.  This year it was presented to one of Johnson’s golf teammates, Scott Barnes. The Student Government also designed wrist bands with his name and sold key chains that read, “Live Under Par.” 

The Cullman Invitational, one of the first events in the Alabama High School season,  was dedicated to Johnson. Several schools, including Spain Park, Auburn High and Oak Mountain High, had shirts or hats monogrammed with his initials.  Vestavia Hills High golf team members attached a black ribbon to its hats.

Plans are in the works for a high school/junior golf tournament to be held in his memory, sometime next year at Greystone Country Club, the home course for Spain Park.

Johnson’s club, Altadena Valley Country Club in Birmingham, renamed its Men's Club Championship, The Bradley Johnson Cup.  Johnson won this tournament at 14 and 16, but did not compete as a 15-year-old because he was participating in a memorial tournament for a close friend, Brad Willis, who died that year in a car accident.

Organizers of the Daikin America Spirit of America Classic held at Burningtree Country Club in Decatur, Ala., named a trophy in his honor. The Bradley Johnson Memorial Trophy will be given annually to the low junior at the tournament. Co-chairman Vicki Bautz helped design the 2½-foot acrylic award that Bradley’s grandfather Bob Johnson Sr. described in the Decatur Daily as “absolutely precious.” The tournament also sold memorial wrist bands for $3 to benefit a scholarship fund in Bradley’s name.

Johnson was also a huge Auburn University fan, and although he had yet to make any official announcement on his college intentions, word was that he planned to play golf for the Tigers following graduation in 2007. When the team heard about his tragic death, Coach Mike Griffin, according to Bradley’s father Hugh Johnson, dedicated the Billy Hitchcock Intercollegiate event in his honor. Auburn went out and won its own 54-hole event by a whopping 21 strokes over second-place North Carolina-Charlotte.

But the tragedy stretched far beyond the confines of Birmingham and Alabama. The AJGA purchased and gave away free wristbands to all of its competitors to honor Johnson at all four of its Easter events, including the prestigious Thunderbird Invitational in Arizona, which is one of the premier tournaments on that circuit.

This August, members at Longmeadow Country Club will erect a small plaque on the 10th hole where Johnson made a miraculous birdie during the second 18 of the championship match. Johnson’s drive found the lateral water hazard to the right of the fairway, yet Johnson managed to put his third shot on the green and hole his next putt for a winning birdie. Johnson and Tway halved the next four holes before Tway closed out the match with a birdie at the 33rd hole. Both Hugh and Shari Johnson will be coming to Longmeadow for the dedication.

At the post-championship ceremony last July, a congenial Johnson was gracious in defeat. His speech to the assembled crowd touched the hearts of a few Longmeadow members in such a positive manner that they wrote letters to him about what a wonderful kid he was and what a wonderful job he did in articulating his thoughts.

For the memorial service, the church was packed with some 1,000 people, including a San Francisco attorney who flew cross-country to pay his respects. Paul Laveroni had befriended a group of Alabama contestants at the 2004 U.S. Junior at The Olympic Club, where he is a member. Laveroni assisted Hunter Hamrick, Matthew Swan, Glenn Northcutt and Johnson during a practice round, showing them the nuances of the venerable Lakeside Course. Laveroni caddied for Northcutt, now a player at Auburn, but he remembered how well-mannered the contingent from Alabama was on the course.

“He was an engaging guy,” said Laveroni, who is going to caddie this week for 2004 runner-up David Chung. “He was very mature. He could talk to anybody.

“After his first round of medal play [in 2004] – I forgot what he shot but he had a wonderful round (73) – and he said to me, ‘I’ll bet after you saw me in the practice round, this guy can’t play a lick. I don’t practice very well. I don’t like to practice.’ And apparently he doesn’t. If you had a competition, then he would do it. He was a gamer.”

At the Tuesday night viewing, Laveroni waited in line for some 2½ hours just to greet Hugh and Shari Johnson. With so many people in attendance at the funeral the next day, Laveroni only could wave to the Johnsons, but Hugh phoned Laveroni upon his return to the Bay Area to apologize that he didn’t get the opportunity to speak to him personally.

“Did you get back all right?” Hugh asked Laveroni. “Thanks for coming. I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to talk to you. That shows you what kind of person Hugh is. The whole family is that way.”

Bradley was the same way, gregarious and ebullient. It was rare not to see him smiling or having a good time. While he loved to compete at the highest level, he never let the game become too important. His golf instructor Hank Johnson (no relation) who has worked with a number of PGA and LPGA Tour pros, including Birmingham’s Steve Lowery, said Bradley was one of the few students who believed that “golf was not who he was, but it was what he did.”

“I think that really helped Bradley,” said Hugh Johnson, “because he wasn’t always concerned about winning.”

Johnson was a champion, both on and off the golf course. He was involved with his church and Christian faith. He was well-respected by his fellow competitors, and he had that calm demeanor people look for in great players.

“On our team, he was the standard that everyone tried to live up to,” Spain Park golf coach and former NFL kicker Al Del Greco told the Birmingham News. “When you’re a coach you love all of your kids, but there’s always one or two that stand out. He was that one kid.”

The night before Johnson competed in his first U.S. Amateur – he earned a spot in the field last year by being a finalist at the U.S. Junior – Johnson intimated how honored he was to be competing at such a historic venue as Merion Golf Club. He told USGA Web Editor Ken Klavon that he had no delusions of grandeur. And although he didn’t make the match-play cut (12-over 152), Johnson left Merion smiling as always, just happy to have competed in this special championship. Johnson managed to leave Merion with a memorable moment, chipping in from the greenside rough at the ninth hole (his 18th of the round) from 25 feet and later called Merion the “toughest course he ever played.”

At the annual U.S. Junior Players’ Dinner for the contestants and championship officials, special medals are handed out to those participants who have competed in three or more championships. Johnson will receive his three-year medal posthumously, and it will be accepted by one of the field’s youngest players, 14-year-old Smylie Kaufman of Vestavia, Ala., the only player from Johnson’s home state to qualify for this year’s Junior.

Kaufman, while three years Johnson’s junior, admired and looked up to Bradley as someone he would like to emulate. On his Media Information sheet that all the contestants fill out, Kaufman wrote that his greatest honor in golf to this moment was meeting and knowing Bradley Johnson.

That’s the kind of affect Bradley Johnson had on others.

That affection will carry on through the Bradley Johnson Memorial Foundation, which was established shortly after the accident. Proceeds from all the fore-mentioned fund raisers, along with future funds, will be deposited to the Foundation.  Leveroni, Del Greco, Hank Johnson, Hugh Johnson and Russ Whiteford, the general chairman of the 2005 U.S. Junior at Longmeadow, are among the nine individuals appointed to the Foundation’s board. The others are family friends Alan Blunt, Richard Poff and Brian Cagle, and Todd Thompson, the founder of the Southeastern Junior Golf Tour.

Approximately $25,000 has been donated to the Foundation just from a request in Johnson’s obituary.  The Board is working on plans to get to an endowment, with the funds being used to furnish scholarship money to junior golfers.

While the monies won’t bring Johnson back, it’s an ideal way to maintain his memory as well as a way for the family to stay involved with junior golf by helping kids who may not have the financial capabilities needed to participate in competitive junior golf.

“We hope that Bradley's death will not be forgotten, and that his life be remembered through his relationship with God, his friends and family,” said Shari Johnson, who is doing her best to cope with the tragedy along with her husband and other son, Michael. “ He loved life, whether it be golf, basketball or hunting.  He attributed his successes from God.  I know he would want people to know that he loved competition, he loved a challenge, never met a stranger and wanted people to feel accepted......never to feel left out...his life was short, but full.”

Laveroni, like so many others, tries his best to comfort the family. A few weeks after the funeral, Laveroni, who is quite friendly with 1982 U.S. Open champion and five-time British Open winner Tom Watson, phoned his longtime pal and asked for a favor. Could he send an autograph photo to Michael Johnson, Bradley’s younger brother and an up-and-coming golfer himself?

Following the Masters, where he is a two-time winner, Watson obliged on the request. He knows a thing or two about losing a close friend. His longtime caddie Bruce Edwards died two years ago after a bout with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), and Watson remains an advocate to finding a cure for the deadly disease.

In a phone conversation with the Johnsons – he talks with them regularly – Laveroni asked if Michael had received anything in the mail.

“Oh yeah, he got an autographed picture from Tom Watson and didn’t know why it came,” Shari Johnson told Laveroni. “Here’s his business address if you want to send him a thank you note.”

And here’s another note the top juniors can jot down this week. If you hit a poor shot or lip out a crucial putt during the competition over the next six days, don’t fret. Take a moment to think about Bradley Johnson. Think about how lucky you are to be alive and playing this grand game, whether it’s a round with friends or a national championship.

Suddenly that buried lie in the rough won’t look so bad.

David Shefter is a USGA staff writer. E-mail him with questions or comments at dshefter@usga.org.

NOTE: To make a donation to the Bradley Johnson Memorial Fund, send a check to:

Bradley Johnson Memorial Fund

c/o Southeastern Junior Golf Tour

P.O. Box 3933

Auburn, Ala. 36831

Phone: (334) 887-9465