Perkins grad Justin Bertsch balances job as club pro with rounds on PGA Tour

Justin Bertsch has played in four PGA Tour events in the past 13 months, including the PGA Championship. He hasn't made a cut while going putt-for-putt with the best golfers in the world, but that's not the point. Bertsch is the head golf professional at Club Pelican Bay, a prestigious 27-hole layout in Naples, Florida. Club pros do not play a ton of golf because they work a lot of hours. While the tour pros are tweaking their mechanics with swing coaches and hitting buckets of balls, pros such as Bertsch are giving lessons, selling shirts and chatting up members. "From November to April there's not a whole lot of golf being played by me," said Bertsch, a 2000 graduate of Perkins High School. "I'm lucky to get out once a week at 3 in the afternoon with a couple buddies to try and remember why you love the game so much when you're working hard." That's the difference between golfers on the PGA Tour and members of the PGA, the club pros you see behind the counter in pro shops. But Bertsch does manage to find some time to work on his game. "Luckily for us, the peak season (in Florida) is when the days are the shortest, so we're not stuck here for 12-14 hours a day like you would be in the summer in Ohio," he said. Winning in Florida Bertsch plays most of his competitive rounds during the hot Florida summers. The PGA events for club pros start up in May, and the top prizes include exemptions for some tour events. Bertsch won the South Florida PGA Professional Championship last September, which earned him a spot in the Puerto Rico Open this past February. He shot a 2-under-par 70 in the first round but followed up with a 74 and missed the cut by two strokes. "I hadn't played a competitive round in quite some time," he said about the 70. "It was a welcomed surprise." The next week, Bertsch played in the Honda Classic at PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. He got a spot in that big tour event because he was the 2019 South Florida Section PGA player of the year. He shot rounds of 76 and 79 on the difficult layout, but enjoyed the experience. Seven buddies from high school and two of their dads made the trip from Ohio to Florida to watch Bertsch compete. "The timing of those two events really worked out for us," he said. "It easily could've been a couple weeks later and we would've missed out (due to the coronavirus)." Bertsch, who is 38 and married with two little girls, had never played in a tour event until last year. He credits the improvement in his game in part to social media, which he mines for tips on his swing, mental game and course management. "There's always ways to find information about how to get better, and that's what I've been doing a job of the last couple years," he said. Balancing work, play Bertsch started his new job at Club Pelican Bay last July and was grateful that he could play in back-to-back tour events during peak season at the club. "The support's been great," he said. "They take a lot of pride in having someone who still has that competitive edge and they see what we do in terms of running this operation and putting on good events for them. "They understand that you wear a lot of hats. To be able to miss two weeks in the peak season was a big deal." Although Bertsch has shown he can compete on the tour, he has no illusions about trying to grind out a living against the world's best golfers. "I certainly don't have any goals to be a touring professional," he said. "I love my family very much and don't want to have any extra time away from them. "To play well against my peers and other PGA members and have a chance to earn an exemption to play in a PGA Tour event, whether it be once a year or every couple years, it's definitely motivation to stand out among my peers." Bertsch met his wife, Sally, when they were students at the University of Toledo. They have two daughters — Lily, 4, and Grace, who turns 2 soon. "We get out in the backyard and hit some plastic balls once in awhile," he said. Bertsch's parents, Dan and Linda, still live in Perkins Township. "I'm an only child. We're trying to get them to move down here when they retire and take care of the girls once in awhile," he said. Bertsch's club in southwest Florida is open despite the coronavirus pandemic. Golfers are practicing social distancing and riding carts are sanitized. "We only have 300-some cases in Collier County," he said. "We're fortunate enough to be able to stay open and be responsible over here, even though we're 120 miles away from a hot spot." Return to PGA? One of Bertsch's big goals this year is to made his second straight appearance in the PGA Championship. He played last year at Bethpage Black, carding rounds of 77 and 73. This year's PGA has been rescheduled for early August at Harding Park in San Francisco. The top 20 finishers in the PGA Professional Championship qualify for the major. But that tournament, originally scheduled to begin next week in Austin, Texas, has been postponed. If the qualifier is not rescheduled prior to the PGA, Bertsch will automatically qualify because he finished fifth in the 2019 PGA Professional Player of the Year standings. If he plays in the major, his experience at Bethpage Black will come in handy. "So many people on every single hole. The scale of that event was amazing," he said about last year's event in New York. "Hitting the first tee shot with thousands of people watching and the trophy right there was certainly something you'll never forget. "It's motivation to play well this summer and do something like that again."