Iowa City’s Tracy Vest makes his PGA Tour debut this week in John Deere Classic — at 51

This week’s John Deere Classic in the Quad Cities has over 60 different winners of PGA Tour events.

It has nine players who have competed in Ryder Cups, three of them five times. It has five players who have combined to win eight major championships. Jordan Spieth has three of those. Zach Johnson of Cedar Rapids, the JDC perennial, has two.

All of which makes it an interesting event for a 51-year-old from Iowa City to make his Tour debut.

So it is for Tracy Vest, who earned his way into the JDC field by winning last July’s Iowa PGA Professional Championship.

Vest has lived in the Iowa City area for five years. He’s a teaching pro at Lake House Sports in Coralville.

“I moved back to Iowa in ‘05 after being in Portland, Oregon for 11 years,” Vest said. “I’ve been a teaching pro for the last 20.”

He’s been one of those names who is in all the Iowa professional tournaments, someone who consistently plays well. He was second at last year’s Iowa Open. He was the 2023 Iowa PGA Player of the Year, snapping Sean McCarty’s string of six straight years to hold that honor.

West Branch’s McCarty and Woodward-Granger’s Vest were medalists at the 1990 Iowa high school state championships, McCarty in Class 2A and Vest in 1A. Now they’re teaching pros who work in the same city, with McCarty the longtime head pro at Brown Deer.

“Sean and I grew up together,” Vest said. “He’s played the John Deere many (seven) times.”

For Vest, the TPC Deere Run course is nothing new. He won a pro-am there last August, 10 days before capturing the Iowa Senior PGA Professional championship in Dubuque.

But this time, he is in the same field with Spieth and Johnson and Jason Day and Patrick Cantlay and players from 21 different countries. All are younger than Vest, and most are considerably younger.

“It’s funny, I don’t feel like a senior, age-wise,” said Vest.

Nonetheless, he made a run last year at trying to qualify for membership on the Champions Tour, for 50-and-overs. It’s where Johnson could be in two years if he so chooses

“I just about got through,” Vest said. “I thought to myself, ‘I can do this.’

“The game has ebbs and flows. I just keep working at it.

“I’ve probably made 10 extra trips over to Deere Run this year. I’ve played it a bunch.”

Qualifying to play in a PGA Tour event is a big deal to anyone who has ever held the title “professional golfer.”

When you’re in the same tourney with two former World No. 1 players (Spieth, Day), you’ve stepped up in class.

“It’s fun to hear those names,” said Vest. “Maybe I’ll play a practice round with them.

“I’ve played with some Tour players. It’s nothing special they do that stands out to me, it’s just that they don’t make mistakes and have such consistency.”

Asked if his main goal was to savor this week’s experience or make the 36-hole cut, Vest needed no time to consider a reply.

“Both,” he said.

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com