It’s not often you can be considered the young hand in a group after turning 50, but that youthful exuberance is exactly what Chad Fribley is counting on.
Fribley is about to live out a lifelong dream when he travels to Ohio to compete in the Senior U.S. Open, which takes place at Scioto Country Club in Columbus, Ohio, from July 2-5. The Senior U.S. Open is part of the PGA Tour Champions, formerly the Senior PGA Tour, and is open to golfers 50 and older.
“I’m going in with 42 years of experience, but I kind of get to travel back in time to use this experience while also being the young guy,” he said. “There’s a big difference between a 50-year-old golfer and a 60-year-old golfer. There’s not as big a difference between a 20-year-old and a 30-year-old.”
The Tualatin golfer is 50, but began working toward qualifying for more major senior events a few years ago, ramping up his training and working with a personal trainer. Even with the youth on his side, he knows he’s up against some stiff competition. The PGA Tour Champions acts as a kind of retirement tour for players on the PGA Tour.
Some of the names Fribley will be competing against at the U.S. Open are Angel Cabrera, Ernie Els, Davis Love III, and Vijay Singh, all players who won major tournaments on the PGA Tour over the last couple of decades.
To qualify for the Open, Fribley entered a local tournament in Canby and then made it to a regional tournament, where he was one of three golfers to qualify out of 30 competitors.
“I’ve had a dream to play at an event like this for 42 years,” Fribley said. “It was pretty overwhelming and emotional when it first happened, but now I’m just getting super excited that I get to go out and hit balls, practice, and play with these guys that I’ve watched on TV my whole life.”
Fribley has spent his life in golf. He has worked in clubs, played professionally, and now works as an instructor. He said his desire to keep going with the sport is partly an addiction to competition, but it’s also about how golf and life interact and run parallel to each other.
“I’m still driven by the fact that I feel like I can get better,” he said. “Forty-two years later, I still feel like there’s parts of my golf game that can get better, and I’m still working on things to improve at. I’m driven by trying to see how good I can still get even though I’m getting older.”
Another driving force for Fribley is his children, Greyson Fribley, 10, and Violet Fribley, 6.
“My parents made it possible for me to chase my dream for as long as I have, and I want them to be able to see the culmination of that and to see that even in today’s day and age, you can still have a dream,” he said. “You can still go after it. People will still support you. They shouldn’t give up on their dreams.”
The trip to the Senior U.S. Open will be part of that culmination for Fribley, as his kids and wife, Sarah Fribley, join him in Ohio for the week to watch him play something he’s worked towards most of his life.
His journey to the Senior U.S. Open kicked off 42 years ago in Tualatin, when he started playing golf at 8 years old with his dad at Tualatin Country Club. He started playing competitively at 12 in Oregon Golf Association junior tournaments and played in high school. Fribley graduated from Tualatin in 1994, the first graduating class at the current high school location.
He went to New Mexico State for the school’s Professional Golf Management program and then started working at courses. He spent some time in Oregon, then two years in Hawaii, and two in Seattle before a colleague convinced him to give it a shot at making it as a pro player.
Fribley played on a bunch of mini-tours around the country for about a decade.
“Those are kind of like the minor leagues in baseball, but the mini tours aren’t owned by the larger parent corporation like in baseball, so there are no guaranteed salaries,” he said. “Everything you earn is performance-related, and only the top three guys make money. It’s a very challenging way to make a living.”
While on a mini tour, he met his now-wife, and they dated long-distance for about five years. He eventually moved to the Bay Area, where she was from, and they started their family. They moved back to Tualatin in 2017, and Fribley has been working as an instructor ever since.
All that time, Fribley has continued to play competitively, as well. He’s hoping to perform well enough at the Senior U.S. Open to lead to some other opportunities to play tour events. Unfortunately for him, the PGA Tour Champions eliminated its Qualifying School, or Q-School, last year, making it harder for players who never made the PGA Tour to get on the senior circuit.
Still, Fribley is hopeful that years of experience combined with his youth can lead to some strong performances so he can continue living out his dreams.
“I think I have a big advantage for the next few years that I’m trying to capitalize on through playing an event like this,” he said. “If I were to play well in the Senior US Open, which I’m hoping to do, maybe I could ask for a sponsor’s exemption into an event, or I get invited to something else.
“There have been players who show up in big events and get exemptions and invites to other tournaments because it’s a feel-good story. I’m hoping to be this year’s feel-good story.”
