It’s been a few years but Jeff Wright can still feel the embarrassment of being woken up in his car in the middle of the night by security because he was sleeping in the parking lot.
“I’ve slept in the back of my car so many times after being just beaten up on a course over the last couple of years,” Wright said earlier this week from a hotel room in Detroit. “Getting woken up in the middle of the night by security because I’m not supposed to be parked in the parking lot of a tournament I’m playing in and just being humiliated. It’s like, dude, if you had any idea the only reason why I’m here is because I can’t afford to get a hotel but I’m five shots out of the lead.”
Wright hasn’t always been a homeless golfer chasing his dream on the course. In fact, the former millionaire has lived a life most thrill-seekers can only dream of. Coming out of high school in California, he was one of the best players in the country. After losing his game in a short stint at Arizona State, Wright returned home to the University of California-Irvine with a new hobby: the guitar.
“I kind of discovered that I had a little bit of a gift for writing and creativity. Low and behold my human sex education teacher at UC-Irvine, in an auditorium of about 250 people, wants to read my exemplary paper out loud. Everybody on my golf team is there, all my friends, and he goes, ‘This what an A-plus paper should be,’ and I just sunk in my chair. I walked off campus and never went back to school. I was like, ‘I’m done.’”
What came next for Wright was a successful 30 years in the music business where he opened for everyone from Hall and Oates to Train and Sugar Ray, followed by an epic fall from grace that left him, you guessed it, homeless. Despite misstep after setback, the former model, rock star and Millionaire Matchmaker contestant has found his way back to golf and will put his game on display Aug 28-Sept. 2. at the U.S. Senior Amateur at Country Club of Detroit in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan.
Get to know the most interesting man in the U.S. Senior Amateur field.