Simply the Best

The song by Tina Turner, ‘Simply the best, better than all the rest’ describes perfectly Ricky Gregg’s career in golf. Gregg is without question, the greatest golfer to ever come out the Seymour-South Knoxville area.
He was inducted last year about this time into the Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame along with Phil Fulmer and a few others. Gregg was on the Sports Talk 990 radio show about the induction.
If you watch the PGA tournaments on TV, the only reason you don’t see Gregg is because of two golf shots that happened in the early 1980’s.
One was in 1983. It was the PGA Qualifying School. Any player who was trying to play on the PGA Tour had to qualify by being in the top percent of the field.
Gregg was playing pretty well when he hit a tree. The ball stuck in the tree. The penalty for that is a lost ball which is stroke and distance.
That one stroke cost him his PGA player’s card. It also didn’t help the Fred Couples hit a long par putt on the 18th hole to knock him out.
When you are within one shot of Fred Couples, you are big time! Gregg was only four over for eight rounds at the TPC course in Florida. He also missed by one shot at Disney World.
Gregg was born and raised in the Seymour-South Knoxville area. He began playing golf when he was eight. His first big win came at 13 years old winning the Bays Mountain Club Championship (BMCC).
At that time, BMCC had some of the top area players as members.
Before the championship began, members would bet on who would win taking odds on different players. “My Dad would take me against the entire field,” laughed Gregg. Gregg won every time. He graduated from Young High School in 1974. He finished third in the state all three years. He twice won the Prep Masters which was considered the elite high school competition at the time besides the state.
Asked how he got so good so early, Gregg said “My Dad would drop me off at the golf course early in the morning and pick me up late in the day after work. I played the entire day.”
One event in his life that probably was a blessing in disguise was when Gregg was 14 years old. He was involved in a car accident that broke his leg.
Before the accident, he participated in various sports but after that he concentrated on golf because the injury set limits on what he could do in other sports.
After high school, Gregg became one of the top amateurs in the country. He won Knoxville City Amateur titles in 1976, 1978 and 1997. After signing with the Vols in 1974, he won three collegiate titles, reached the NCAA championship four times and he was all SEC three years.
During that time, he played in two U.S. Amateurs and won the local sectional qualifier to reach the U.S. Open in Southern Hills in Tulsa, OK.
Gregg was playing against the world’s best players, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson, Lee Trevino and others. He didn’t make the cut but as a 20 year old he “had the time of his life.” His Dad caddied for him. “My Dad caddying for me was really special.”
Being the humble person that he is, it didn’t bother him to get the famous players autographs while he was there.
In the 1978 State PGA Championship, Gregg rallied from five shots down to capture the title. That gave him the Tennessee Amateur of the Year Award. Representing Tennessee, he played in the State Amateur Invitational Championship in Pennsylvania.
Gregg finished ahead of many top tour players, three of which became good friends – Curtis Strange, Bob Tway and Hal Sutton. Do these names sound familiar?
Gregg also played on the Asian Tour. On one of those tournaments he was using a native Asian female caddie. “It was very hot. We were all walking in the rough under the shade trees and she stayed in the fairway in the sun. We told her to come over in the shade with us that it would be cooler there. She responded ‘no thanks, that’s where the poison cobras are.’ We moved in a hurry” laughed Gregg.
Gregg has won approximately 50 amateur championships. He holds eight local course records, most of the scores range from 59 to 61 from the back tees.
Asked if he would try the Seniors Tour, He responded, “I can still play well every now and then but the guys I’d be competing against, the Fred Couples, are guys I played with 30 years ago. They’ve been playing on the tour all these years and I’ve had to work. I don’t think I could make up for a 30 year gap.”
In 1997, three days after he won his last Knoxville, City Championship, Gregg almost died from a stomach aneurism. “The good Lord had me where I needed to be. If I hadn’t been in the emergency room when it ruptured, I would have bled to death the doctor said.” Gregg said, “It really put things in perspective.”
A few years ago, Gregg gave a free golf clinic for young kids at the Chapman Driving Range. “I felt like I should give back to the community.”
His advice to young players is “spend more time on the short game.”
Besides Bays Mountain, his other home course later became Holston Hills Country Club.
The main teacher in his life was Bill Faddis (also a Knox Hall of Famer) who is now deceased. Another teacher he had was the famous golf instructor Bob Toski in Florida. The teacher who cured his shanks two days before qualifying school was a guy by the name of Arnold Palmer at Bay Hill CC in Orlando. Palmer was his childhood hero.
Gregg works for American Standard. He has a wife and two daughters. One is married and the other one will be soon. Other activities include fishing and spending time with his family.
The two men who have influenced him the most in golf was his Dad and Bill Faddis, his golf teacher.
Ricky Gregg is a genuine sports hero and person this community should be very proud of.