Jerry Kelly ended a 51-week victory drought just in time to defend his American Family Insurance Championship title in his hometown of Madison, Wisconsin.
Kelly conquered the field at last week’s Principal Charity Classic in Des Moines to pick up the ninth victory of his PGA TOUR Champions career. He rode accurate driving, a hot putter and typically solid ball-striking to a playoff triumph over Kirk Triplett.
Kelly was playing his third tournament with a set of new irons and new shafts, but he said the biggest difference was the swirl of positive events happening around him. His wife, Carol, who’s still undergoing treatment for a cancerous right kidney that was removed in October, received great news regarding recent scans. And their only child, son Cooper, just landed his first job, at organizational consulting firm Korn Ferry in Chicago.
“It was definitely because of what I had going on around me that I was able to play well,” Kelly said Wednesday. “We got a great positive report about my wife on Friday, and it made all the difference in the world. It just made us both so happy and optimistic for our future together. Golf became secondary, but golf also became enjoyable.”
Kelly said his wife had treatments in Arizona every three weeks for the past six months. They have a second home in the area, which has alleviated much of the hassle about going back and forth.
“She’s having a treatment right now and it’s the first one that I’ve missed,” Kelly said. “I’m pretty bummed about that. But this is a big one in the hometown. We host a lot of people. And our sisters got to go down with her to Arizona so that was good.”
Kelly actually is the two-time defending champ at the American Family Insurance Championship because the COVID pandemic caused the event to be canceled in 2020. He bested Retief Goosen and tournament host Steve Stricker in a playoff in 2019, and he won by a stroke last year over Miguel Angel Jimenez and Fred Couples.
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