by Doug Miller

Diana Jorgensen doesn’t hesitate to answer when asked why her husband, Julius, has become a golf icon in the Pacific Northwest.

“Well, for one thing, he’s stubborn,” Diana says with a laugh of her husband, who has been a player, a club pro, a teacher, a club-fitter, a driving-range director, a shop owner, and a lot more over five decades dedicated to the sport.  

“I’ve never known anybody who works as hard as this man. Pretty much 70 hours a week for decades. He just truly loves golf and the golfers, and he won’t stop doing what he’s doing for the game.”

Julius is 74 years old and suffers from Parkinson’s Disease, but his tireless ethic endures.

He and Diana shut down their beloved Jorgensen Golf shop in Mukilteo, Wash., in 2019, after 24 years in business, but they’re still showing up every weekend to help run the Puetz Golf Tournament Series, a local tour that provides amateur players the taste of competition and the opportunity to win credit at Puetz Golf stores.

“The enjoyment that I get out of it is watching people get better and helping out local courses,” says Julius, who started the original Jorgensen Golf Tour in 1990. “We’ve generated more than $3 million in green fees for these courses and we’ve had a part in a lot of people having a lot of fun.”

Julius and Diana might have more fun than anyone. They attend the tournament events most weekends, with Julius teeing off in the last group and Diana walking every step of every hole.

“Every year, we say to each other, ‘How much longer do we want to do this?’” Diana says. “And we say, ‘We’re not ready to let go of the people.’ We just love watching their success, and we love their friendship.”

Bill Peabody is one of those friends. Peabody, a semi-retired certified financial planner who lives near Olympia, Wash., and describes himself as a “double-digit handicapper,” joined the Puetz circuit in 2020 during the COVID pandemic and says he can’t imagine life without it.

“They’ve got a tournament nearly every week, sometimes two a weekend,” Peabody says. “It gets you out there. It’s an adventure. The fact is, I just wouldn’t get up in the morning and go play golf in Mukilteo or Bellingham. But having these destinations to go to makes it worthwhile.”

Peabody also cherishes his time with the Jorgensens, whom he says he greatly admires.

“Diana’s one of the hardiest walkers I know, and Julius, he’s pretty incredible,” Peabody says. “It’d be so easy with Parkinson’s and his slight tremors to give up the game or complain. But he doesn’t. And he’s no slouch of a player. He’s still money around the greens.”

Julius grew up in the San Fernando Valley in Southern California. He was 5-foot-3 (and a half), so, when it came to high school sports, he says his only options were “flyweight wrestling or golf.” His family didn’t have a lot of money, so he worked a job and bought his own clubs.

“I lost every single match my junior and senior years and only broke 80 once,” Julius says, “but I didn’t give up.”

After some college at Cal State Northridge, he moved to Washington and was drafted, serving four years in the Army Medical Corps. During that time, he whittled his handicap down to a 6. He tried to walk on to the University of Washington’s golf team but “didn’t hit the ball far enough.”

Julius worked at the university as a microbiologist until 1980, when he decided to make a career out of golf, entering the PGA Apprentice program. He worked his first job at Jackson Park Golf Course in Seattle, where he lived in a small apartment above the pro shop for three years and paid $25 a month for rent.

Gigs followed at Seattle’s Sand Point Country Club, North Shore Golf Course in Tacoma, the Riverbend Golf Complex in Kent, and the Columbia Super Range in Everett before he and Diana set up their golf shop in Mukilteo. He had started his tournament series in 1990 while at the Super Range.

“When I set up the tour, I didn’t have access to a golf course to play,” Julius says. “I decided I would set up a club and have events in the area, which would allow me to continue to play golf. Selfish, maybe, but a win-win for everybody.”

No kidding. James Boyer, a web specialist with Puetz Golf who works with the Jorgensens to publicize their events, says the series has a large group of regulars, and he believes the Jorgensens are the reason people keep coming back.

“Everybody loves them,” Boyer says. “They’re super-friendly and they’re always there. The events are well-organized and people have a great time.”

The sentiment is reciprocated by the couple that started it all and keeps after it, one shot at a time.

“Our message to the people is that we’re staying with you,” Diana says. “We’re going to keep moving this forward. We wouldn’t want it any other way.”