Family Matters

Marc Turnesa faces up to the responsibility of representing his famous ancestors on the PGA Tour

deep roots: Turnesa is an honorary member at Florida's Old Palm GC, but his story begins with a New York family that was immersed in the game.

By Tim Rosaforte

Photos by Bob Croslin

February 23, 2009

The scene was breakfast at the Bay Hill Club and Lodge, early in the week of the 2008 Arnold Palmer Invitational. Palmer was waiting on his eggs when PGA Tour rookie Marc Turnesa, who was awarded a sponsor's exemption into the tournament, walked into the room and was introduced to The King.

Turnesa, hat in hand and feeling a little star-struck, simply listened. "I felt the energy around him because he's such a big figure I've seen so many times," Turnesa recalls 10 months later. "When he was speaking, I was half in shock, but I'm pretty sure what he said was, 'You have a great family. I knew your grandfather, and if it wasn't for your family, you wouldn't be here.' "

Turnesa took it as a show of respect. Palmer knew almost all of the seven golfing Turnesa brothers—Marc's grandfather and great-uncles. Palmer knew Jim Turnesa won a PGA Championship, how they all competed against the likes of Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, Sam Snead and other war-time greats, and how Willie Turnesa, the only brother not to turn professional, was one of the game's great career amateurs, perhaps second only to Bobby Jones. But in the Bay Hill locker room Marc Turnesa slipped in almost unnoticed, just another gracious guest filling out the Monday pro-am.

"I told Marc [he has] to remember he represents seven guys who, other than Willie, didn't have an education." says Joe Turnesa Jr., Marc's 76-year-old second cousin and the son of Joe Turnesa Sr., who won 15 PGA Tour events. "They came from parents who couldn't read and write, who [when] they died were still married to the same girls. None of them left their wives. [He has] a responsibility to carry on in the memory of those guys. Marc has a legacy, and he's responsible for that."

He's trying to make the most of that responsibility. Turnesa started 2008, his rookie season on the PGA Tour, slowly and struggled with those expectations through the summer, missing 13 cuts in 22 starts. At the Stanford St. Jude Championship he was two shots off the lead entering the final round, but he made an 8 on the first hole, shot 77 and finished T-37. He had success in the fall, with a T-2 in the Viking Classic—Turnesa came to the 71st hole with the lead, then hit a 7-iron into the water and eventually lost a playoff to Will Mackenzie—and a win in Las Vegas three weeks later. He is off to a typically slow start in 2009, but instead of worrying about keeping his card or playing with other struggling pros off the Nationwide Tour, he has a two-year exemption on the PGA Tour.

His four-year rise from club cleaner to tour winner would make his ancestors proud. In 2005 Turnesa spent the winter picking the range and working the cart room at Jonathan's Landing in Jupiter, Fla. He played the Gateway Tour, developing the reputation of a nice guy who couldn't close. He finally qualified for the Nationwide Tour in 2007 where, in a foreshadowing of last fall's success to come, he won the Miccosukee Championship on the next-to-last week of the season to jump inside the top 25 on the money list and advance to the PGA Tour. Those who remember his struggles enjoyed the scene last October on the 18th green at the TPC Summerlin in Las Vegas: Turnesa, with showgirls on each arm and a big cardboard check with his name on it, interacting with the event's host as winner of the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals For Children Open. "That was the most nervous I was all week," Turnesa says.

Steve Marino, who played mini-tours with Turnesa, was there at the final green to greet him, pouring a beer onto Turnesa's head and arranging for a suite at the Bellagio for the victory party. Marc's father, Mike Jr., flew out from New York Saturday night and was there for the celebration. By the end of the year, his son had a first- and second-place finish to his credit and $1.3 million in earnings—at 30, a very good first season in the bigs.

To start the 2009 season, Turnesa took his mother to Kapalua for the Mercedes-Benz Championship. One month later he was paired in the Buick Invitational with Padraig Harrington and Camilo Villegas, his practice partner at Old Palm GC in Palm Beach Gardens.

Between tour events Marc and his father met one morning on the first tee at Old Palm, where Marc is an honorary member, for a game against Raymond Floyd and his son, Robert. It gave Marc a chance to reflect on his 12 months on tour. "I'm sure I take it for granted sometimes, but yeah, every once in a while I've got to pinch myself because I've got it pretty good," Marc says. "If it wasn't for my family, who knows what would have happened? My great-grandfather came over here; it was a lot different back then, and if he only knew what it was like now, he wouldn't believe it."

Vitale and Anna Turnesa emigrated from a farming town just east of Naples, Italy, to New York City in 1904. According to family legend, Vitale walked 28 miles from Manhattan to Elmsford, N.Y., where a cousin had a plot of land. During that trip Vitale learned that Fairview GC was being built, and he took a job on the construction crew. That led to a job as head greenkeeper and a home next to the course. The Turnesas were old-school Italians, right down to a shrine in the living room.