Tim Lower coached his son the way fathers do—through presence, not instruction. Tim’s fatherly presence at every tournament and every practice round was, in essence, a coaching round. Until the night he was driving to pick Justin up from the course.

On March 26, 2005, the night before Easter, Tim Lower and his 10-year-old son Chris left the American Legion in Marshallville, Ohio, heading toward Lyons Den Golf Course. Justin Lower was waiting to be picked up by 5:30 or 6 PM, with Chris beside his father in the car. The hours stretched. Justin’s mother, Debbie, called and came to get him instead. Tim and Chris still weren’t home.

Then came the phone call from the American Legion. A car wreck on Marshallville Road. The vehicle had struck a telephone pole, flipped, and landed upside down at the base. Chris died on impact. Tim Lower died shortly after. Justin was 15 years old.

The details that emerged in the aftermath carried their own weight. Tim Lower had been driving more than 80 mph on a road with a 55 mph limit. His blood-alcohol content measured .23—nearly three times the legal threshold. He had fallen asleep at the wheel, and his 10-year-old son, seated in the passenger seat, had tried to wake him. Justin learned that night what his family had concealed from him: his father struggled with alcohol abuse, a fact Tim had hidden from his children until the day it killed him.

“The memories I have are all good memories with my dad and brother,” Lower later told the Canton Repository. “They were so much fun. Most of the memories I have with my dad are on the golf course.”

Before the accident, golf was the language between father and son. Tim wasn’t vocal—he communicated through presence. He showed up at every tournament, arms crossed when Justin wasn’t playing well, a silent signal the teenager learned to read. On New Year’s Day 2001, an 11-year-old Justin beat his father for the first time at Turkeyfoot Lakes Golf Links in Ohio. They played nine holes in the winter cold, then counted strokes over hot chocolate in the clubhouse. Justin shot 42. Tim shot 43. That same year, Justin told his father he wanted to play on the PGA Tour someday. Tim, who worked as a gravedigger for an excavating company, never discouraged the dream.

Two months after the accident, Justin entered a local tournament. He shot a bogey-free 64, hit every fairway and green, and won by seven shots. He described the feeling as lifting a “big burden” off his shoulders. Golf didn’t replace what he lost, but it gave him somewhere to put the weight.

The path forward fractured in other ways. Grades slipped. Interest from top college programs faded. Lower graduated from high school without the academic profile to attract elite recruiters, despite winning the OHSSAA Division II State Championship. A friend suggested Malone University. Lower called the coach, Ken Hyland, whom he had met years earlier. Hyland offered him a chance. Lower earned the 2010 NAIA national individual title and Player of the Year honors, then turned pro in 2011.

Then came a decade of mini-tours, near-misses, and the Korn Ferry grind. In 2018, he missed an 8-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole of the Web.com Tour Championship—one shot shy of his PGA Tour card. He didn’t earn that card until 2021, a full 16 years after the accident that reshaped his adolescence.

The loss never fully recedes. It resurfaces at milestones, in quiet moments, on days the calendar marks for celebration.

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Justin Lower and the weight of Father’s Day at the U.S. Open

The U.S. Open’s final round falls on Father’s Day. For most players, the timing carries sentimental warmth—a chance to honor the men who introduced them to the game. For Lower, the day operates differently. He described it as “a day of remembrance” rather than a celebration, noting he tries to spend time with his mother because he knows it’s difficult for her too.

In 2024, Lower qualified for his first major at Pinehurst No. 2. A video of him discussing the accomplishment went viral—he choked up explaining what it meant to play a Sunday round at the U.S. Open on Father’s Day, 19 years after losing his father and brother. “It’s kind of everything,” he said, exhaling, rubbing his eyes. “The Sunday usually falls on Father’s Day, and I lost my dad when I was fifteen. So that would be, just to be able to play on that day in the U.S. Open would be really cool.”

He cut the number. He shot a final-round 70, including a 43-foot bomb on the 16th hole to get back to even par for the day. He finished T50. Afterward, someone asked what his father would have said about the week.

“Probably good week overall, but could’ve been better,” Lower replied. “It’s what he’d normally say.”

Lower wore a bracelet inscribed with his daughter’s name—Ariana Lynn, 18 months old at the time. The generational math has shifted. He is a father now, carrying forward what he lost while building what comes next. He still thinks about the accident every day. Sometimes for a minute. Sometimes for an hour. The ball marker in his pocket reads: Dad 3-26-2005 Chris.

The game that took everything from him remains the only place he can still find them.