Gary D'Amato

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Bogart and Bergman will always have Paris. Dwight Clark will always have The Catch, Joe DiMaggio will always have The Streak and Evander Holyfield will always be missing a piece of his ear, thanks to The Bite.

Dave Zeisse of Milwaukee also has a claim to fame, dubious though it may be.

In 2017, he was The First.

As in, the first golfer to register for the U.S. Open. The United States Golf Association received his online entry at 9:01 a.m. EDT on March 8 – one minute after player registration opened.

“It was just an accident, actually,” Zeisse said. “I went to sign up and I clicked on the link two or three times and it didn’t take me anywhere. The fourth time I clicked, it went to the application.”

If form holds, some 10,000 golfers will register to play in our national championship, June 15-18 at Erin Hills Golf Course in the Town of Erin. Last year, entrants hailed from all 50 states and 72 foreign countries. Registration closes at 5 p.m. April 26.

Let’s just get this out of the way: Zeisse is not going to win the first U.S. Open ever held in Wisconsin. It would rank as a minor miracle for him to make the 156-player field. He’s tried five times previously and never made it past the first stage, 18-hole local qualifying.

“I didn’t start playing golf until I was 25,” said Zeisse, who will turn 39 on May 6. “I’m around even par right now. I’m in a transition with my golf swing. I can shoot 67 or I can shoot 83.”

Should he catch lightning in a bottle, though, and chase Joe Golfer’s Holy Grail in the shadow of Holy Hill, he will have an advantage over Jordan Spieth, Dustin Johnson and Rory McIlroy. That’s because Zeisse has caddied at Erin Hills for five years and estimates he has schlepped bags over the course nearly 1,000 times.

He knows every blade of grass, every puff of wind, every unseen break in the bentgrass greens.

“I think there would be a slight advantage for knowing the golf course,” he said. “Execution is another story.”

Zeisse, a Thomas More High School graduate, represents the dreamers, the scores of good-but-not-great golfers who take their shot each year, hoping to get through local and sectional qualifying. He is a professional with the kind of back story Fox Sports would love to tell.

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Zeisse once worked for Quad Graphics. Then he got hooked on golf, quit his job and enrolled in the Professional Golfers Career College in Temecula, Calif., a sort of finishing school where aspiring pros learn how to run golf shops, teach lessons and deal with insufferable 30-handicappers.

After that, he worked on cruise ships for three years, giving lessons and organizing golf excursions on exotic island courses. He contracted with all the major cruise lines and played golf throughout the Caribbean and in Hawaii.

Sounds like a slice of heaven, doesn’t it?

“It’s not that big of a dream job,” Zeisse said. “It’s cool, but you’re also living in a tin can for six months. My job had no salary. It was all commissions and tips.”

He gave up cruise ships for the caddie gig at Erin Hills. In the winter, he works on his game in Orlando, plays on mini-tours and caddies at the Ritz-Carlton Grande Lakes and The Concession Club in nearby Bradenton, Fla.

He will tee it up in the local qualifier May 11 at The Bull at Pinehurst Farms in Sheboygan Falls. If he gets through that, it’s on to 36-hole sectional qualifying. And if he gets through that …

“It just takes three rounds,” Zeisse said. “I’d love to play in a U.S. Open at Erin Hills.”

So, too, would 10,000 others. But a guy can dream, can’t he?