Editor’s note: In 1973, Ben Crenshaw set the original PGA TOUR record by winning the Qualifying Tournament by 12 strokes. Nine years later, Donnie Hammond lapped Crenshaw's record with his dominating 14-stroke win at the six-round Qualifying Tournament at TPC Sawgrass’ PLAYERS Stadium Course and Sawgrass Country Club in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. As the Final Stage of PGA TOUR Q-School presented by Korn Ferry starts later this week in the same city as Hammond’s heroics four decades earlier – again at Sawgrass Country Club, along with TPC Sawgrass’ Dye’s Valley Course – the 66-year-old Maryland native happily looks back on a tournament when he ran away from the field.

Occasionally people will ask me if I’m aware that my 14-stroke win at the 1982 PGA TOUR Qualifying Tournament is Q-School’s margin-of-victory record, and I’ll politely tell them I’ve only been letting people know that for the past 41 years.

While it has been more than four decades since I earned my PGA TOUR card for the first time at that Q-School at the newly opened TPC Sawgrass and Sawgrass Country Club, much of the week remains very vivid to me.

In the summer of ’82, I was playing mini-tour golf on the Space Coast Tour, and I had won the Florida Open in July at Sandpiper Bay Country Club in Port St. Lucie over Kip Byrne. So, I had a lot of confidence going into the Q-School. Maybe I was even almost overly confident, thinking on my drive to Ponte Vedra Beach from Orlando – where I was living at the time – that this could be the week.

I stayed with Jeff Grygiel, a buddy from the Space Coast Tour, also entered in the Q-School. We rented a two-bedroom condo, and my dad made the trip from Frederick, Maryland, to watch on the first day. That meant a lot to me. With almost no gallery, it was hard to miss my dad. But in his typical fashion, he said, “I'm not going to get in your way. I’m just going to watch you play for a day or two.” He walked all 18 holes, and we went to dinner that night. He watched me for nine holes the next day and then left. He didn’t want to be a distraction.

I had gone to college down the road, at Jacksonville University, so I was quite familiar with Sawgrass Country Club. As a team, we were lucky enough to be able to work for NBC in both 1978 and 1979 as on-course spotters during THE PLAYERS Championship. It was our job to see where a player’s shot went and then radio in the location to the director so he could get the camera operators in position.

During the two years I worked the tournament, and the few times I played the course while in college, I remembered that because of its location next to the ocean that it could be a really tough two days. Or at least I knew I had to be potentially ready for two challenging days. The only thing I knew about TPC Sawgrass is it was under construction when I was in school and that it had hosted its first PLAYERS Championship eight months earlier.

As a young pro, my other thought was I hoped I didn’t get paired with some veteran who could be a little intimidating to play with. As it turned out, I did get paired with a veteran for the first two rounds—Gary McCord. He, though, was anything but intimidating, and it didn’t take long for me to realize McCord was going to keep things light. Everything seemed a little less important, and I learned that when you're playing with McCord it helps because things aren’t so serious. That was the first time I met McCord, and we’ve been friends ever since.

In only my second time seeing the new Stadium Course (I played a practice round a day earlier), I shot an opening 66 and held a one-shot lead over Buddy Gardner. I knew a few of the writers from Jacksonville because of my college days, and I remember them telling me that the 66 tied the course record set by Tim Simpson and Jay Haas at the inaugural PLAYERS.

I followed the 66 with a 68 the next day at Sawgrass Country Club, and now I led Gardner and Russ Cochran by six shots. The weather was really good, and none of the wind I feared ever materialized. Round 3 for me was also at Sawgrass Country Club, and my 1-under 71 allowed me to maintain a six-stroke advantage over Gardner.

The fourth round, at TPC Sawgrass, where I would play the final 54 holes, was a big day for me. The wind was swirling. I would look at the trees and the grass, and one minute it would be blowing left and the next it was going right—probably at 15 to 20 mph.

My second tour around TPC Sawgrass turned out to be a great round of golf, and if there were a shot of the week for me, it had to be on the par-5 11th hole. The flag was all the way on the back of the green, and I had probably a 245-yard approach to the hole. I hit a 3-wood second shot that barely carried on the front of the green. It then trickled all the way back down the slope and then back up the hill, stopping 2 feet from the hole. I tapped that in for eagle and finished with a 65. Now I owned the course record all by myself.

I knew I was playing well, but even I was surprised after my round when a writer asked, “OK, Donnie, how does it feel to have a 14-stroke lead?”

That was the day that really separated me with from the field, up 14 with 36 holes to play.

It was one of those weeks, where if I had, let’s say, a tough up and down, I would seem to chip it to 6 feet and make the putt. Then, if I had a 12-footer for birdie on the next hole, I would make that, too.

I remember starting to think a couple of times, “When is your luck going to run out?” Then I snapped out of that train of thought and said to myself, “Hey, you were a psychology major. Don't think like that. Don’t try to talk yourself out of this great play.”

Good things just kept happening to where I never really had that tragic triple bogey or a couple of double bogeys, the kind of thing on those two courses that it seemed everybody was experiencing.

For the fifth round, I was paired with a little-known pro from South Africa named Nick Price. I really didn’t know much about Nick. I knew he had won on the European Tour (now the DP World Tour) because I had seen an article in Golf World magazine. But watching the way he played the game, I couldn’t help but be impressed. His swing was so tight even though it was fast. He seemed like a seasoned professional, and I’m just watching him during the during the round thinking, “How am I beating this guy?”

I did not have my best stuff in the final two rounds. I shot a 74 on day five but somehow improved my lead to 15 over Nick, who also shot 74. Then on the last day, the wind was really tough, and only one player broke 70 all day (Dan Forsman). I shot 75, but that was no problem. I finished with 419 strokes, at 13 under par, 14 strokes clear of David Peoples. Nick finished third, 16 behind me.

That year, the TOUR introduced a purse to Q-School for the first time, $9,000 to the winner. Well, I had no idea. I was only thinking about getting my card and fulfilling a lifelong goal of making the PGA TOUR. After my round, one of the writers asked me what I was going to do with the money. I stated the obvious, that the money would come in handy during my first year on TOUR. Then I said, “I love cars, and I’ve always wanted a Porsche 911.”

Well, the next day in the paper, it comes across as “this joker is going to buy a Porsche while guys are playing for their lives and didn’t get their cards.” I learned that even though I was joking about the car, maybe I shouldn’t have said that. Trust me. I did not go out and buy a Porsche 911.

After winning Q-School, I felt great relief. Sure, I would be playing in the same tournaments as Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson, but prior to Q-School, sometimes thoughts would creep in about whether I was good enough to make it. What would I do if I failed? My backup plan was to return to college and get my master’s degree. I had the bright idea that I might be a marriage counselor.

Winning Q-School eventually led to a 24-year TOUR career, where I won twice and played in 497 career tournaments.

Since Plan B never came to fruition, I like to think that I probably saved a lot of marriages.