that kind of ended up being my salvation.” The year was 2000, and Wright crammed everything he
had — a few clothes, his second-hand clubs and his hunting rifle — into his car and headed for Phoenix. After arriving, he joined Troon at Whirlwind Golf Club at Wildhorse Pass. He also saved some money, applied for grants and enrolled in the San Diego Golf Academy in Chandler. “I never dreamed I could get that far, but all of a sudden
I’m 25, in the golf business, and actually closer than I’d ever been to my goal of being a Class A PGA professional,” Wright said of his great adventure. “In 2002, I made it a reality when I got my first real job as an assistant golf professional at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes Golf Club.” A few years later he passed his PAT and thereafter earned
his PGA Class A professional status. In 2014 he got his chance to “sit in the big seat,” moving to the Hilton Pointe Tapatio Cliffs’ Lookout Mountain as its director of golf. Along the way Wright has made quite an impression, like
at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes, where he worked for both Garrett Wallace, who was then the general manager, and Brady Wilson, the club’s current GM, as a head professional. Needless to say, Wallace and Wilson are huge Wright fans. “You’ll be hard pressed to find someone who has met JC
who doesn’t like him, and even harder pressed to find someone JC has met that he doesn’t remember,” said Wallace, currently the general manager at Troon Country Club in Scottsdale. “Back in the day at Southern Dunes, we had a pretty impressive group of members, and from professional athletes to doctors to business leaders . . . they all loved JC.”
Wilson, too, said there are no wrongs to Wright. “As a person, JC is a superior guy — down to earth, great
values and culturally still very connected to his community back in Rosebud as well as the national Native American scene,” Wilson said. “He takes a lot of pride in doing the right thing, was a big part of the changes we made here at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes, and you will never find a guy who works harder. “He is a total professional and a role model. He’s what
you’d want your kids to grow up to be.” Wright’s current boss, Ron Simon, the general manager at
the Pointe Hilton at Tapatio Cliffs, heartily agrees. “JC possesses a warm, inclusive style of management, as
he has matured into an outstanding leader who is respected by his peers and direct reports,” Wright said. “He’ll never shy away from a challenge and also has a keen sense of golf-related marketing.” In every way, it’s been a steady yet somewhat meteoric rise
in the business for Wright. Even JC has to stop occasionally to catch his breath. “I wanted to be a role model just to show other (Native
American) kids how to get it done,” he said. “And one of my main messages was: you don’t have to be a golfer to be in golf. “So in the end I think it’s important that I have succeeded
as a kind of trend setter among my people, because I’m not sure what could have happened had I failed. I mean, Notah Begay has done a lot nationally, and Sam McCracken from Nike has really supported Native Americans, too. That’s really the kind of impact that I’d eventually like to have.” n
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