Jim Starnes Captures 2024 Golfweek Super Senior Player of the Year Honors
Bill Doyle
Fort Myers, Florida – Jim Starnes earned Golfweek Senior Player of the Year honors in 2016. So when he turned 65 in July of 2022, he set the goal of becoming Golfweek Super Senior Player of the Year.
Mission accomplished.
Starnes, 67, of Fort Myers, Florida, finished atop the points list to earn Golfweek Super Senior Player of the Year for 2024. He had finished third the year before.
“The fact that I laid it out as a goal and achieved that was very fulfilling,” he said, “and rising to the occasion when I got the yips in the latter half of the year, that made it much sweeter.”
Starnes played his best golf in the first half of 2024, earning his two victories of the year at the Florida Azalea Senior in Palatka, Fla., in March and the Low Country Senior Invitational in Okatie, S.C., in May along with posting many other high finishes.
In June, however, at the Golfweek Senior National in Greensboro, N.C., he slipped on wet grass while walking into a fairway bunker and sprained his right ankle. He taped up the ankle to fire a final-round 71 to finish sixth in the 54-hole event, but his game suffered for quite awhile thereafter.
His ankle eventually improved, but his putting inside of three feet grew much worse. At the 54-hole Society of Seniors Founders Cup in Santa Barbara, Calif., in November, he had 19 three-putts and a four-putt. Even worse, he reached a par-four in two, but six-putted for a quadruple-bogey.
He had led the POY points list for most of the year, but fell behind Greg Goode of Salina, Kansas. Starnes has always owned a lot of putters, but in desperation he switched to a broomstick full-time for the first time, a Bobby Grace 45-incher.
“You can use it as a broomstick and if things really go sideways, you can use it sidesaddle,” he said.
His putting improved so much, he conducted what he called a “fire sale” by selling nearly all of the short putters he had purchased for $2,500 last year and he plans to ditch the other two early this year.
“I’m committed to the long putter going forward I think in perpetuity,” he said. “The experience of missing so many two- and three-footers and 18-inchers and one-footers has been overwhelming and I just can’t go back.”
In December, he finished third in his next-to-last event, the Society of Seniors-Ralph Bogart in Jupiter, Fla., to regain the POY points lead and finished eighth in the final event of the year, the Golfweek Tournament of Champions at PGA National, Palm Beach Gardens, to earn POY honors.
Starnes ranked his POY honor up there with qualifying for the 1974 U.S. Junior Amateur and the 2016 and 2021 U.S. Senior Amateurs.
Starnes said Ron Gaines, Golfweek Senior Director of Rules & Competition, informed him that he believes he’s the first golfer to win both Senior and Super Senior POY honors.
Starnes will be among those honored on Jan. 16 after the opening round of the Golfweek Player of the Year Classic at the Omni Orlando Resort. His partner Debi Cassis will accompany him.
“She’s a part-time caddie,” Starnes said, “and full-time data Golf Genius data entry supervisor. And she knows the three rules of being a caddie: Show up, keep up, shut up. Usually, she’s good with two out of three of them.”
In addition to his two victories, Starnes finished in the top five 12 times in 2024.
Starnes estimates he spent $80,000-$100,000 in equipment and traveling across the country to play in 30 54-hole events and the only monetary reward he said he received was $3,000 in socks and ball markers. But he insisted earning Golfweek POY honors was well worth it.
He plans to cut back to about 15-17 Golfweek events this year, but will play in more Florida State Golf Association and Four-Ball events. His home overlooks a pond on the 13th hole at his home course of Fiddlesticks CC.
Brad Card, Starnes’ frequent playing partner at Fiddlesticks, pointed out that many golfers suffer from the putting yips at times, but he rates Starnes as a “phenomenal putter” and an even better friend.
“He’s a funny guy,” Card said. “He’s got more jokes than any professional comedian. He goes joke after joke after joke.”
After Starnes, Card and a few others from Fiddlesticks played in Ireland, Starnes wrote songs using AI about everyone on the trip and sent them to everyone.
Card jokingly calls Starnes “Super Senior 91” because Starnes once shot a 91 during a tournament.
Starnes is also called “FIGJAM,” which stands for “Fudge I’m Good Just Ask Me.” That’s the clean version.
Starnes opened his 2025 season by finishing third in a Golfweek event, the Plantation Senior Invitational in Venice, Fla., despite carding four double-bogeys and a triple-bogey, and he was scheduled to tee off in the Verandah Senior Invitational on Tuesday.
“Just keep swinging,” he said, “have a good time, chase my goals and see what happens.”
Bill Doyle
Bill Doyle brings 45 years of professional sports writing experience to New England dot Golf. His resume includes 40 years as a sports writer for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette where he wrote a Sunday golf column and covered professional and amateur golf. He also wrote about all four of the major professional sports teams in the Boston area, mostly about the Boston Celtics, as well as college and local sports. Working for the newspaper in the city where Worcester Country Club hosted the inaugural Ryder Cup in 1927, Doyle covered the improbable comeback of the U.S. team at the 1999 Ryder Cup at The Country Club in Brookline. He also covered the 1988 U.S. Open at TCC, the 2001 and 2017 U.S. Senior Open championships at Salem Country Club, the U.S. Women’s Open championships at The Orchards in South Hadley in 2004 and at Newport Country Club in 2006, the PGA Tour stops at Pleasant Valley Country Club in Sutton for nearly 20 years and at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, Connecticut, for several years; and every PGA Tour event at TPC Boston in Norton from the inaugural event in 2003. He will provide regular contributions ranging from interviews, travel, lifestyle, real estate, commentary and special assignments. Bill can be reached at bcdoyle15@charter.net.
