Player Profile - Heath Slocum

This week’s player profile showcases the career of American golfer Heath Slocum. Born in the riverside city of Baton-Rouge, Louisiana he showed promise on the course from a young age. His father Jack was an avid golfer and taught his son the game growing up. By the time Slocum was a high school student in Milton, Florida he was playing on the school golf team alongside Boo Weekely. Both young men would go on to play on the PGA Tour.

Slocum went on to enrol at the University of Alabama at Mobile, where his game continued to improve. During his years of competing in college golf tournaments he won many accolades including the title of All-American which he won an impressive three times. Slocum went pro in 1996 after graduating.

Slocum’s professional career began on the Nationwide Tour. In his first year he won three events in the season, earning a promotion to the PGA Tour. However, as the young golfer prepared to make his debut he was prevented from playing due to health reasons. At the end of 1997 Slocum developed Colitis, which prevented him from playing golf for eighteen months. During this time, Slocum underwent treatment and in 2001 he made his Tour debut having weathered a serious illness.

Slocum’s track record on the Tour has included four championship victories. In 2004 he won the Chrysler Classic in Tucson, Arizona beating Aaron Baddely of Australia by a single stroke. The next year, Slocum won the Southern Farm Bureau Classic, with a two-stroke lead over Sweden’s Carl Pettersson. In 2009 victory was his once more at The Barclays, where he beat a host of players including Tiger Woods by a single stroke. Slocum represented the United States in the 2007 World Cup of Golf, and has played in all the majors on the Tour, placing ninth at the 2008 US Open.

On Sunday, Heath Slocum won the McGladrey Classic in Atlanta, Georgia beating Bill Haas by one stroke. This victory is yet another accolade for the popular US PGA Tour player.