Editor’s note: Joe Durant turned pro in 1987 soon after graduating from Alabama’s Huntingdon College, where he was a three-time NAIA All-American and 1987 NAIA individual champion. He toiled on the min-tour circuit for many years, eventually earning 1992 T.C. Jordan Tour Player of the Year following his three-win season. Durant has won on every level he’s played – mini-tours, Korn Ferry Tour, PGA TOUR and PGA TOUR Champions, his fifth win coming in March at the Cologuard Classic. Durant remembers well his initial PGA TOUR title, the 1998 BMW Championship at Cog Hill outside Chicago, and what transpired with a certain champion’s trophy.

When I won the 1998 BMW Championship (then Motorola Western Open) at Cog Hill Golf and Country Club, the victory certainly gave me a feeling of, “OK, I’ve arrived.” It was my first TOUR win, and I felt like it validated my position as a TOUR player, proving that while I may not have been the best in the game, I was the best that week.

But a month later, I still hadn’t received my trophy in the mail from the Western Golf Association. I had never won a tournament before, so I didn’t know how long it typically took. When I called then-Tournament Director Greg McLaughlin, he told me the person who typically handles the trophy and the preparing of the winner’s nameplate had been ill, and that delayed things.

Well, another month went by and still no trophy. One day, after just finishing my season at the old National Car Rental Disney tournament in Orlando, I traveled back home, and what was waiting on my front porch? A box from the Western Golf Association.

Gee, I wonder what that could be.

I was with my wife, Tracey, and the two of us walked in the front door, me holding the delivery. I quickly opened the box and pulled out the big, glass globe that sat on a wooden base. As I admired it, my wife’s eyes immediately went to the trophy’s base.

“Isn’t this really cool?” I asked.

“They spelled your name wrong,” she casually said.

What I’m now about to write is a recap of how, ahem, Joe “Dumont” won the 1998 BMW Championship.

After opening scores of 68-67 in late June at Cog Hill, I was the 36-hole leader, a stroke ahead of Vijay Singh and two clear of Greg Kraft and Lee Janzen. A week earlier, Lee had won the U.S. Open at The Olympic Club in San Francisco.

Friday night, I was having dinner with Skip Kendall, who was also playing in the tournament, and John Flannery, a former TOUR player who was now an equipment representative. We were at a small, Italian restaurant not far from the course. A guy at an adjacent table looked at us, took us for golf fans, and asked, “Do you know who’s leading the tournament?”

Skip pointed at me and said, “He is.”

Our fellow diner looked at me and said, “Who’s he?”

The fact this man didn’t know shouldn’t have been surprising. Why would he know? In 1998, it was true then as it is today: I am not a household name.

Friday had already been an interesting day. Because of an overnight storm following Thursday’s opening round, officials delayed the start of the second round for 90 minutes. That meant I finished my day quite late. When I was tidying up my 67, most of the fans had gone home, and the TV cameras were nowhere to be found.

As a longtime resident of the Florida Panhandle, near Pensacola, WEAR, the ABC affiliate in town, had always followed what I did on TOUR. Naturally, for its evening newscast, it wanted to show footage of my good play. It wasn’t every day I was leading a tournament.

Because I didn’t show up during the Friday broadcast window, there were zero highlights of my round. That forced my buddy, sportscaster Dan Shugart, to be a little creative. He and anchor Bob Solarski had an idea. They would draw stick figures of me, imagining what I had done during the second round to get the lead. They did this little cartoon thing of me playing the 16th and 17th holes and then put it on the screen for viewers to see. While I didn’t see it, my stick-figure highlights became a pretty notorious thing in Pensacola, and lots of my friends saw it and loved it.

Saturday, I was in the final pairing of the day, playing with Vijay. Vijay was already a five-time TOUR winner, and two months later he would win his first major title, the PGA Championship. I was pretty nervous, but I was playing well, and although Cog Hill is a very hard course, it didn’t feel nearly as difficult as Olympic. So that was my frame of mind entering the day.

Although I didn’t play poorly Saturday, shooting a 2-under 70, Vijay posted a 7-under 65, giving him a two-stroke lead over Kraft. He was four clear of me, in third. That put me in the second-to-last pairing of the final round, playing with Janzen. That was a very comfortable pairing for me since I’ve known Lee since our college days.

I assume WEAR was able to find Saturday footage of my play, no need to resort to more artwork.

That night, I called home, and my then-7-year-old daughter, Connor, talking about what would take place the next day, gave it to me straight: “Don’t blow it, Dad.”

Kids, right? They never sugarcoat things. But what she said was such an icebreaker because I thought, “Don’t blow it” meant go out, hit your first tee shot in the fairway, makes some putts and win the tournament.

Yeah, don’t blow it, idiot. And I didn’t.

I began the final round hot, making birdies on two of my first three holes. A bogey at No. 4 dropped me back, but I added two birdies going out to post a 3-under 33. Meanwhile, Vijay, playing in the final group, was 1-over on his opening nine. As I played the 10th hole, with Vijay bogeying nine, we were tied. I then took a two-shot lead, with birdies at Nos. 10 and 11. But I bogeyed 12, with Vijay making birdie, and we were tied again. Finally, I got a little breathing room, making a birdie at the par-3 14th, where Vijay bogeyed the hole a few minutes after me. By the time I reached the 17th tee, I was up two, and a birdie there gave me a three-stroke cushion with a hole to play.

With a chance to win my first TOUR title, I bogeyed the 18th hole, which turned out to be meaningless, and I won by a couple.

That victory was as rewarding as anything I’ve ever accomplished in golf. I played so horribly my rookie year and then worked really hard to get back out there, to regain my card. I first got my PGA TOUR card in 1993, and that season I made two cuts in 18 starts and a whopping $4,055 in prize money. I finished 279th on the money list. I played the 1994, 1995 and 1996 seasons on what is now the Korn Ferry Tour, and in 1996, I won once, was a runner-up in another and had two third-place finishes. I closed the year third on the money list, earning a return trip to the PGA TOUR.

A PGA TOUR win two seasons later certainly validated all of my hard work.

After finishing all my post-tournament obligations at Cog Hill, tournament officials told me they would mail my trophy to me. No problem, I thought.

I was in a rush to catch a flight to Cape Cod for a Monday pro-am hosted by Brad Faxon and Billy Andrade. By the time I got on the charter flight, filled with TOUR players going to the same place, everybody was giving me a bad time for making them wait. Can you believe I had the nerve to win, forcing those guys to wait around?

I remember Scott Hoch and Tom Byrum having an especially good time with me. It was really fun.

There was a legitimate concern, though, as the small airport in Massachusetts apparently shut down, with no aircraft able to land after 10 p.m. We cut it close but beat the deadline, and by the time I got to the hotel I was able to call my wife.

It was an emotional call. Very emotional. She was in tears. Tracey had been through the really low lows of my career. For part of the call, she couldn’t even speak. To be able to celebrate a high like that meant a lot to me because Tracey understood what the sweat equity had been in the process. She knew I had quit golf after the 1991 season and got my license to sell insurance. I had also worked for a golf retail equipment company with the glamorous job of filling orders and putting inventory on shelves. Even when I returned to competitive golf, vivid to her were my days on the mini-tours and then me having to go back to the Korn Ferry Tour after getting a taste of the PGA TOUR.

Talking to and celebrating with her was such a satisfying, meaningful phone call.

I know I didn’t sleep a wink that night and just got up and played in the pro-am the next day. Who was my celebrity partner? Boston pitcher Tim Wakefield, the Red Sox observing a break in their schedule. I had never met Tim before, and he was so nice, making a big deal about getting to play with a PGA TOUR winner. Tim and I played in a few other tournaments after that, and we became friends. It was a sad day for me when Tim died a year ago from brain cancer.

The memories of my win at Cog Hill are quite clear and memorable. Along with my title outside Chicago, I also won three additional TOUR events. The PGA TOUR record books indicate I won all four tournaments, but there was a period of time, albeit a brief one, where a certain trophy sitting in Molino, Florida, showed that Joe “Dumont” was the 1998 Motorola Western Open champion.

Mr. “Dumont” had to wait a few more weeks for a replacement nameplate, but when it finally arrived, I have to admit, Joe Durant never looked so good.