Doing what's natural: Johnson ready for Jr. Amateur

DeKALB – Timmy Johnson likes to go with the flow.

The reason the DeKalb resident goes to Marmion Academy?

“To be honest, it was my parents’ choice,” said Johnson, whose sister attends Rosary.

The reason he chose to focus on golf after playing pretty much every sport growing up?

“I pretty much knew this was what I was going to do because I wasn’t exactly gifted with height,” Johnson said. “But height isn’t really important in golf.”

All that’s important in golf is scores. And Johnson believes he is ready to put up some low scores at this week’s Illinois Jr. Amateur at Makray Memorial Golf Club in Barrington.

Johnson finished one stroke shy of the cut in early June at the Midwest Junior Players Championship in Bloomingdale.

And he’s hoping to make a splash at Makray after falling three strokes shy of the cut last summer.

He’ll be joined this week by his regular practice partners at Kishwaukee Country Club, DeKalb High’s Trace Royer and Andrew Morreale. Royer missed last year’s cut by one stroke while Morreale was 10 strokes behind.

It’s a friendly rivalry, but one the playing partners certainly enjoy.

“If I was by myself all the time, I would go insane and not want to do this, but they make it fun,” Johnson said. “Out here [Kishwaukee], Trace usually wins. But in tournament play, anybody can.”

Royer feels like he’s playing a lot better heading into this week’s tournament.

He will play a practice round with Morreale at Makray on Monday and afterwards they will share notes.

“I was disappointed but I wasn’t playing good coming up to that tournament [last year],” Royer said. “I’m playing a lot better right now, I have a little bit more confidence.”

Johnson knows that, as far as his future in college goes, tournaments like this week are important. The 17-year-old, who will be a senior at Marmion in the fall, can start talking to colleges on July 1.

“Summer is everything with colleges,” Johnson said. “The high school season is irrelevant. It’s kind of a flawed system but you have to go with it.”

Johnson still finds the fact that he didn’t end up attending DeKalb a little strange. But he’s used to traveling to school and to play golf.

Although he grew up in DeKalb, Johnson was a member at Big Foot Country Club in Fontana, Wis., near his grandparents’ home, until four years ago. He won the Big Foot junior golf championship three years in a row and then wasn’t eligible to play again.

“It’s weird, because I grew up going to all the DeKalb games and rooting for all of my friends’ older brothers,” Johnson said. “But then I ended up at Marmion. And last year we won the conference title in every sport but basketball and football, the two sports everyone cares about.”