John Hilliard Catanzaro spent — what should have been — one of his happiest high school memories in a state of complete uncertainty.
As he walked across the stage of his high school graduation, Catanzaro was pained to hear, “John Hilliard Catanzaro: continuing to play golf at the University of South Alabama.”
“He looked the saddest he’s ever been,” Catanzaro’s mother Tracey Catanzaro said. “And he’s here graduating with all his friends. We sat there with heavy hearts because we didn’t know what was going on. Was he going to get a spot somewhere?”
Catanzaro is a redshirt junior on Georgia’s men’s golf team but was committed to South Alabama committed to South Alabama because of head coach Alex Hamilton.
Leading up to his graduation, Catanzaro got a call from Hamilton that turned his world upside-down. Hamilton left South Alabama to be the head coach at Wofford, and with him were Catanzaro’s hopes of playing college golf.
Before Catanzaro ever thought about a college destination, he spent time split between golf and basketball. Golf, for him, was the family sport. His father Tony Catanzaro played college golf at Auburn, and his older brothers also played. It was not until Catanzaro was in middle school that his parents began to recognize his talent.
At a U-16 event in Gadsden, Alabama, an 11-year-old Catanzaro won the tournament outright. Buster Inman, a golf instructor, made a point to speak to Tony Catanzaro, describing the bright future Catanzaro had ahead of him.
Throughout middle school, Catanzaro trained his golf mechanics before school on his own.
“This was before he could drive, so I’d drop him off at the putting range before school and then pick him up again,” Tracey Catanzaro said.
“He just wanted to get better. He was the same way in basketball where he just wanted to out-work people,” Tony Catanzaro added.
Regardless of his talent, it took time before Catanzaro was noticed during recruiting.
“In eighth grade, he was like 5-foot-2 or 5-foot-3, but between his junior and senior year he grew about a foot,” Tony Catanzaro said. “He was a late bloomer in that sense. He went from being shorter than everybody to hitting [the ball] harder and faster than everybody.”
This delayed performance opened up the opportunity of college golf to Catanzaro, and like his father, he wanted to attend Auburn. But he dismissed that idea once the school told him he would have to sit out his freshman year.
“I had originally put all my eggs into one basket,” Catanzaro said of Auburn.
But that original dismissal freed Catanzaro to consider other, smaller schools. Then came South Alabama and Hamilton.
Hamilton’s departure convinced Catanzaro not to attend South Alabama.
“He was really only going there for the golf, not for the school,” Tony Catanzaro said.
Catanzaro then turned most of his attention to the University of Alabama at Birmingham. At the same time, Hamilton was making phone calls to nearby coaches, including Georgia associate head coach Jim Douglas.
Douglas and Hamilton had a history together, but Georgia’s spots for the upcoming season were full.
However, Douglas and Catanzaro continued speaking to one another. Once an additional spot became available, Catanzaro accepted it, but he was wary of a school so far away.
“He had a couple of friends he knew that were going to UAB,” Tony Catanzaro said. “And after everything with South Alabama, that would have been a really easy decision to make.”
Tracey Catanzaro remembers convincing her son that he was worthy of the spot at Georgia.
“I told him, ‘Georgia doesn’t just ask anyone. They asked you,’” she said. “‘It’s time to put on your big-boy pants and let’s do this.’”
After accepting the spot, while on vacation with his family, Catanzaro realized how far behind he was in the orientation and registration process.
“I had to write these papers in two or three days in order to get confirmed as a player, and I was on vacation with my family,” Catanzaro said. “I had to choose almost the last orientation. It was not the best way to go as a freshman, let me tell you.”
Even the rest of the golf team did not know of Catanzaro’s place on the team until late July, two weeks before classes started. And to add insult to his situation, Catanzaro was invited to the U.S. Amateur Championship in California during the first week of classes. So he spent another additional 10 days away from his Georgia teammates.
“The week was both a blessing and a curse for us and John Hilliard,” Tracey Catanzaro said.
That first semester at Georgia, Catanzaro said he felt incredibly isolated.
“I was sort of uncertain that first semester as to why I was here,” Catanzaro said.
Both Catanzaro and his parents agreed though that his experience since then has been ultimately positive. They’re convinced that Georgia was definitely the right choice.
Catanzaro competed in nine events for the Bulldogs during his first two seasons and redshirted his third because of a shoulder injury. He said he’s unsure if he will pursue golf after college, but his parents are convinced he will work outdoors regardless of what he does afterward.
“I feel like we played catch-up that entire first semester,” Tracey Catanzaro said. “But he doesn’t want to come home now.”