According to the Masters' official website, Wilson qualified [image-nocss] by winning the 2008 U.S. Mid-Amateur tournament, defeating Todd Mitchell 5 and 4 in the 36-hole championship match at Milwaukee Country Club in River Hills, Wis. He won the 2007 Mississippi Amateur tournament and the 2008 Mississippi Mid-Amateur tournament. Low competitive round is a 63.
Wilson said business is good at Fayard's BP in Gautier, Miss., added a report by Newsday. It helps that the customers love the roast beef po' boys, Southern hero sandwich specialties that Wilson sometimes makes, when he's short on help behind the counter. "I sell a whole bunch of them," he said Wednesday, after he played in the Masters Par 3 Contest with Bernhard Langer and Craig Stadler.
Business runs so smoothly at Fayard's BP that Wilson says he does not have to stay there more than a couple of hours a day, he told the newspaper. This gives him a chance to work on his golf, which he did as a pro on mini-tours for 10 years before getting his amateur status back.
Wilson puts to good use the business degree he earned at the University of Southern Mississippi, where one of his schoolmates was Brett Favre. Wilson has played golf a few times with the quarterback, but he is a pretty close friend with Favre's brother Scott, through local tournaments, said the report.
Wilson gave up golf "30 or 50 times," he told The Star-Ledger. A former college golfer who couldn't break 80, he is a public links player with what he calls a "chicken-wing swing."
And there he was Wednesday, standing between the pines at the most famous golf course in the world, playing in the annual par-3 contest at Augusta National in a group with Craig Stadler and Bernhard Langer. "Between us," he cracked, "we've won three Masters."
Wilson was playing in only a couple tournaments a year when he shocked everyonefamily includedwith a victory last fall in the U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship.
He had never played in an actual PGA Tour event until he won the mid-amateur, missing the cut at the less-than-prestigious Viking Classic in his native Mississippi. He spent 10 years kicking around on the Nationwide Tour when he gave up and petitioned to get his amateur status back. Even then, his goal was just to play in amateur events in Mississippi.
Wilson always had a good tee-to-green game, but not the short game to match, said the report, and the frustrations have caused him to toss the clubs in the garage more times than he cares to remember, he said. He always drags them back out.
He left Southern Miss and turned pro but quickly realized he had to make a living doing something else. He bought Fayard's BP with another sometime-pro named Gary Martin and carved out a good living. Martin is his caddie this week.
"He is certainly not rich by any means," Mark Mumley, one of his friends back in Mississippi, told the paper. Mumley organized a golf outing and banquet to raise money for his travel expenses, complete with an Augusta National scorecard on the place mats. Wilson donated the $5,000 to the local youth golf organization in the state. That, his friends say, is typical.
Hurricane Katrina hit Wilson and his family hard, said the report, with 4-1/2 feet of water flooding his house. He still went to his station the day after the storm, hooked up a generator and pumped out 10,000 gallons at a cut rate to anybody in the area who needed it. "I'm a retailer, so high prices do nothing but hurt me," he told Newsday. "If a guy has got $20 to spend, and he has to spend more on gas, there's less he can spend on other stuff, so I get hurt by high gas prices more than anyone."
Wilson does not expect to win the tournament. After a career with too many bogeys and divots, he just wants to walk down those famous fairways and look out into the gallery and see his father and his son, he told the Star-Ledger.
Click herefor more on Steve Wilson.
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.