Since he was 9 years old, former East student Joe Wilson IV has been competing in golf tournaments. Now, almost 15 years later, he competes against some of the best golfers in the nation.
After winning the Ohio Amateur on July 18, 2025, Wilson competed in the U.S. Amateur in August. Wilson’s days before the tournament, which was held in San Francisco, were filled with hours of practice.
“Every day, I got up around 6 am, got up, got breakfast, and went to the golf course,” Wilson told Spark. “I would do 30 minutes of putting, 30 minutes of ball striking, 30 minutes of putting again, and then go play. Then I came back and I practiced for a couple of hours.”
Wilson comes from a family of golfers; his dad used to be a golf coach, and both of his parents still play recreationally, while his sister, Bree, played Division III golf for Rhodes College.
“He’s been golfing since he’s been walking,” former East boys golf coach Jeff Combs told Spark. “I’ve known him ever since he was a little kid from golfing with his dad.”
Growing up in a family so involved with golf, Wilson was inspired by watching golf events like the U.S. Amateur on TV.
“I got the true golf bug seeing all these televised tournaments,” said Wilson. “I was like ‘I want to do that,’ so my dad gave me a plan from middle school to college of how to get there, and I never looked back.”
Though Wilson has known since he was 10 years old that he wanted golf to be his future, when he entered his teenage years, he started to recognize that he had the skill to make it possible.
“I realized that I was actually good enough to do this,” said Wilson. “It wasn’t just a pipe-dream. Pretty much from middle school on, it was all golf.”
Entering high school, Wilson successfully made it onto the East boys golf team, where Combs was the coach at the time.
“I knew [Combs] throughout elementary and middle school because my dad was the junior varsity coach [at East],” said Wilson. “I knew him and I always wanted to play for Coach Combs. Freshman year, when I got on the [varsity] team, I was super pumped to get to play for him.”
Throughout his high school career, Wilson’s dedication to golf was obvious to both his teammates and his coaches.
“He’s a rare bird, even when he came in as a freshman; he was almost like a 40-year-old,” said Combs. “[Wilson was] so mature, respectful, and just such a hard worker, and an awesome leader.”
Wilson would give “motivational speeches” to his East teammates on the bus ride home after they experienced a loss. His senior year, he would show up early to practice and set up drills for the team.
“I’m telling you, in my 27 years of coaching, and I had some of the school’s best leaders, none of them were like him,” said Combs. “He was also very, very positive, but he would tell people specifically what our group needs to do if we were going to win GMCs or win State, things like that. So he pushed them, too.”
Even at the collegiate level, The Ohio State University (OSU) golf coach, Jay Mosely, noticed that these qualities were present in Wilson.
“He’s super involved in leadership, both on the team and outside the team,” said Mosely. “Joe is always kind of an extra coach in the room to echo what we’re saying, even if we’re not around. He does a really good job engaging everyone to try to get the guys together for a team meal, or to hang out. He’s always trying to put the team fi rst and do everything he can to support his teammates.”
Though Wilson is academically a senior at OSU, he is a “red-shirt” junior in golf because of an injury that caused him to miss the season his sophomore year.
“I tore my right abs away from my pubic bone, and I tore the labrum inside my hip, so I was in a wheelchair and hip brace, and I had to take a full year off ,” said Wilson. “I had to sit out, sadly, because I couldn’t swing.”
Being forced to focus on something other than golf for the first time since he was a child was jarring for Wilson. This not only changed the way he felt physically, but it changed his mentality as well.
“It’s kind of funny, because when you’re just playing golf every day, you’re worried about a good score or bad score. But then, through the recovery, I was just trying to learn how to walk correctly again,” said Wilson. “Everything changed; just learning how to take a couple steps or walk up a hill was a challenge. Golf really took a seat on the back burner.”
Ever since that moment, Wilson dedicated himself to improving his game- physically and mentally.
“He was in a pretty tough spot as a college golfer,” said Mosley. “When golf was taken [from him], it really changed his perspective on a lot of things. He was really diligent with his rehab and built himself back into a competitive golfer, and he came out of it much stronger than when he went in, as a person and a golfer.”
While his injury was a major setback, it gave him time to improve his athleticism and took his physical game to a new level.
“I did so much good work to get my body where it needs to be in terms of movement, strength, stability, and all that kind of stuff ,” said Wilson.
As both Combs and Mosely would attest, one of the reasons he is able to play the way he does is his attitude.
“He tries to focus on the positive things at all times,” said Mosely. “He doesn’t ever get mad or let those things build up inside him; he just stays positive.”
