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Source: The Wisconsin State JournalSept.儲存 27--Hollywood might not go for this. It's too improbable. Golf is too fickle.Here's the story. A guy tries for a decade to make the PGA Tour, and finally accepts he's not quite good enough. He walks away with no regrets, to an exciting new career.He basically puts his golf clubs in the closet. Some time later, he takes them out long enough to enter the biggest tournament in the state. Somehow the guy finds himself walking down the fairway of the last hole, in the last round, tied for the lead.It couldn't happen.Except that it did, last month, in the Wisconsin State Open at the Tuckaway Country Club outside Milwaukee, to Madison's Jim Lemon.Growing up in Madison, playing at the Nakoma Golf Club, Lemon was something of a prodigy. As a junior at Madison West, Lemon fired a long iron to within 6 feet of a tough pin on the 18th hole at University Ridge to win the state high school individual title by one shot.He then played for Dennis Tiziani at the University of Wisconsin, and Tiziani, Steve Stricker's father-in-law, told Lemon he was good enough to give the PGA Tour a shot.Lemon gave it more than that. He entered the tour's unforgiving "Q-School" nine times, the last in fall 2011, without ever earning a card to the big show.Not that Lemon didn't have some success. He played several seasons on the Canadian Tour, serving as a player rep on the tour's board of directors, and in 2003 he secured a spot in the John Deere Classic on the PGA Tour. He was about to go out for a practice round when a familiar voice said, "Mr. Lemon, are you a single?" It was Vijay Singh. The all-time great had seen Lemon's name on his golf bag. They played the practice round together. That week in the Quad Cities, Singh won the tournament. Lemon missed the 36-hole cut.After falling short at the first stage of Tour School qualifying in North Carolina in October 2011, Lemon decided it was time for a change."I wasn't quite where I wanted to be in golf," Lemon, 35, said this week.Months before he reached that decision, Lemon had a conversation with Steve Hird, a Nakoma member and longtime family friend. Hird felt Lemon -- a two-time academic All-American while playing golf for the Badgers -- had the savvy, drive and connections to join Hird's group of financial advisers at Morgan Stanley.Hird, a senior vice president at Morgan Stanley in Madison, was fine waiting while Lemon gave tour school one last try. They set February 2012 as a tentative start date, which gave Lemon, after he failed to advance out of the tour school's first stage, a chance to caddie for his old Canadian Tour buddy, Steve Gangluff, in the tour school finals at PGA West in California in December 2011."It was a great experience," Lemon said. He helped his friend to a second-place finish, earning Gangluff a PGA Tour card.Lemon's own clubs,mini storageduring those months, went unused. Even after he started at Morgan Stanley -- which Lemon calls "an unbelievable opportunity" that he is enjoying -- he didn't play."I was concerned about how I would react to golf," he said.But at some point in the spring of 2012, Lemon began to play some recreational rounds."I had a great time," he said. He learned to exhale on the course, and found enjoyment in watching a high handicapper's face light up after a good shot. He was there when his dad, Madison certified public accountant Elmer Lemon, shot a career-best round of 74 at Nakoma.Lemon played the Wisconsin State Open, an event that draws the state's best amateur and professional golfers, in the summer of 2012. He played well -- a tie for eighth -- but made no plans to increase his tournament play. Nor does Lemon plan to regain his amateur status, which takes about two years and would allow him to play prestigious events like the U.S. Amateur. He has had his run as a serious tournament player.Still, the game's pull runs deep, and there is no harm in teeing it up once in a while in an event where you have to sign your scorecard. The 2013 Wisconsin State Open was last month at Tuckaway, in Franklin, a course where Lemon won a big event as an amateur.He entered the tournament, and on the first hole, feeling some nerves, Lemon hit his drive under a tree. But he hit a fine recovery shot, and made the putt for an opening birdie. Lemon ended the day with a 67.It gave him the lead, and Lemon was still leading entering the fourth and final round. But his playing partner, former Badger Ryan Helminen, shot a blazing 5 under par on the first nine to go in front.Lemon trailed by two shots on the 16th tee, but made birdie on 16, and then when he hit a long iron stiff on 17 -- reminiscent of his long-ago high school shot at University Ridge -- Lemon and Helminen were tied with one hole to go.Walking down the last fairway, with Helminen in trouble in a green side bunker, Lemon knew a par would likely be good enough. His girlfriend, Kate Wierwill, and best friend, Chris Tierney, were walking nearby. His dad, Elmer, was around somewhere, keeping his distance like he always did while spectating.It crossed Lemon's mind that to win the State Open now would be better than if he had won while he was playing the tours. Then it would have been expected. This was more special.In the end, he had a 10-inch tap-in for the championship. He made it. Elmer appeared at the edge of the green. Father and son shared a long hug. Sometimes golf gets it right.Contact Doug Moe at 608-252-6446 or dmoe@madison.com. His column appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.Copyright: ___ (c)2013 The Wisconsin State Journal (Madison, Wis.) Visit The Wisconsin State Journal (Madison, Wis.) at .wisconsinstatejournal.com Distributed by MCT Information Servicesself storage