Julia Johnson begins a whirlwind season of dream-chasing this week on the Epson Tour at the season-opening Florida’s Natural Classic. There was a time after Johnson rewrote the record book at Ole Miss that she didn’t think professional golf was in her future. She left Oxford, Mississippi, with three degrees, including two master’s, a national team title and either tied or in sole possession of every possible individual record for Ole Miss women’s golf.
And yet, an undiagnosed health issue had her moving in another direction: broadcast television.
After Johnson reclaimed her health (more on that below), she now had two careers she wanted to pursue. So when she’s not playing golf this season, she’ll be calling golf. Sometimes perhaps in the same week, like Emilia Migliaccio did last year at the U.S. Women’s Open at Pebble Beach.
In the middle of it all, Johnson will marry her college sweetheart, though the honeymoon will be postponed until the offseason.
Golfweek caught up with Johnson ahead of the Epson Tour opener to find out more about her plans for 2024. What follows are excerpts from that conversation:
I want to go back in time for a minute. It's 2021, you've helped lead Ole Miss to the school's first team national title in all of women's sport as a senior. Take take me through the process of figuring out what you're going to do next.
I think because I had made the decision to come back for my senior year before even SECs. I was finishing up my first master’s, and I got my MBA that senior year. And then I was like, ‘Well, how cool would it be if I go two Master’s degrees and I stayed for five years and I did all this?’ So I made that decision before the national championship, and I decided to come back.
There was still one record that I did not have at Ole Miss, which was the four wins. I had gotten every other record, and I was like ‘How can I leave without getting one last one?’ And so I did that when I won The Annika, my first tournament.
How did you first get into television work?
Julia Johnson poses at the desk during while hosting an episode of Golf Central. (courtesy photo)
I had kind of built relationships with Brandt Packer, the producer, and Steve Burkowski. My coaches Cory Henkes and Zack Byrd had great relationships with them as well. I think my coach could kind of see that I was really struggling in that last year, and I was like searching for something and kind of ready to be done with golf. I remember a tournament, it was in the spring, our third or fourth event, and I felt like I just lost my hands. I was in a really bad mental place. I didn’t feel like myself anymore.
She reached out to Brandt was like, listen, she needs something else. She needs another outlet, and something to look forward to after this. And they were awesome. Being that we had been on TV so much my senior year with East Lake, with the national championship, and all of that, they had known me, and I had done a lot of interviews. So I think it was kind of a pretty easy fit.
Being that we didn’t make the national championship that last year, I was able to fly out there and shadow and step into a spot that last day, which I still think is absolutely insane that they were like, OK, you’ve been here the last three days, go call the national championship. I’m grateful for Brandt and his trust, I guess. But that was a pretty crazy time.
So compare your nerves, working a national championship broadcast versus playing for the national title?
It’s crazy because I got asked that question as I was doing it probably 10 to 20 times. I said I was absolutely more nervous to work it rather than play it.
Playing it, you just go into this little bubble, especially when you have a team around you. You feel like you have a support system. And you feel like that at Golf Channel with great producers and stuff, but this was something I’d never done before.
I’d played golf for 20 years at that point. I was comfortable playing golf and I had control over that. And then you go into doing something new, and you’re hearing the producer talking in your ear and the broadcast going at the same time. You have to figure out which switch to flip on your mic pack, when to come in and when to not to talk over people, and it was just a totally new experience for me. And I was unbelievably nervous to call that.
What will you be doing this year?
So I’m actually doing stuff with PGA Tour Live as well. So I’m going down there after we have three events on the Epson Tour for our first swing, all in Florida. And then I fly back down to Florida, and I’m going to do PGA Tour stuff. I’ll do the Houston Open for my first one.
And then I’m covering SECs, which I’m really excited about, because we won that event my sophomore year, and it just has such like special place in my heart, I guess.
And then I’m doing some Golf Channel stuff. I’m doing the national championship again, which is at La Costa, I believe, in California. So that will be really fun. And I’m trying to qualify for the U.S. Open, and I’m also going to do feature groups for that.
Any off week that I have from playing golf, I’m calling golf.
Did you have any hesitation about turning pro, given that you're enjoying this TV realm?
I don’t know if a lot of people know this, but I had surgery in 2022. I had a myomectomy. So I had not played golf in about eight or nine months. The reason we were dealing with a lot of stuff that senior year was because I had a benign tumor the size of volleyball in my uterus. We were dealing with that and I had other tumors as well. So I think it was in total about 10 or so. I ended up having to have a cesarian section in November of that year, 2022.
I hadn’t touched the club in six or seven months and had an eight-week recovery. I had to deal with that, and then I got I got the invitation to play the Augusta National Women’s Amateur in January. Zack Byrd called me and said, you’re gonna get in. I know you haven’t played, I know you don’t want to play anymore. … He’s like, I think you should just go play, you are still high enough in the WAGR.
So I started practicing to play and didn’t have a whole lot of expectation, but like fell in love again with the grind of practicing. I felt like I had a fresh start post-surgery.
How has covering some of the best in the women's game from a different perspective helped your own game?
The University of Mississippi’s Julia Johnson hits out of the bunker on the 16th hole during a practice round at the Augusta National Women’s Amateur at Champions Retreat Golf Club in Evans, Ga., Tuesday afternoon March 30, 2021.
Immensely. I think it’s given me a totally different perspective, especially that last year. I got really hard on myself and just beat myself up for hitting it to 20 feet, 30 feet. I would get in a really kind of just negative mind space, and it would snowball, and then I go to calling golf and I watched some of the best players in the world miss greens. I watch them get frustrated at themselves. I watch them kind of do some of the things that I’m doing.
It happens. It’s the game of golf. It’s just a frustrating game sometimes. I also watch them make great decisions, and I watch them save pars and I’m inspired by that. It’s just it’s been really cool to see it from the other side because I’m less hard on myself, and I’m appreciative of good golf.
What are your biggest dreams?
Julia Johnson
I don’t think I would start playing golf again if I didn’t think I could win on the LPGA. I think that I’d love to compete in the U.S. Open and be there on Sunday down the stretch and making a run for it. I think that I can. I’m excited to be on the Epson Tour to learn how to win again.
