ORIG. / Andy Tullis / The BulletinJames Chrisman of Bend, practices his putting at Awbrey Glen Golf Club in Bend Tuesday afternoon 9-2-14.

James Chrisman is no stranger to USGA national championships.

Having played in two U.S. Amateur championships and two U.S. Junior Amateur championships, the longtime Bend resident knows just what to expect when he tees off Saturday in the U.S. Mid-Am.

But it has been a while for the 45-year-old Bend insurance agent.

“Anything that is a USGA event, they’re really hard to get in to, so I am pretty excited,” says Chrisman, who last month at Aspen Lakes Golf Course in Sisters survived a three-way playoff to advance.

Chrisman will be among the 264 golfers at Saucon Valley Country Club, which has hosted six USGA national championships, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

And like many in the field, Chrisman could be the poster boy for why, in 1981, the USGA created the U.S. Mid-Amateur.

Being limited to amateur golfers age 25 and older makes the college golfers who dominate the U.S. Amateur Championship ineligible.

The tournament is designed to give amateurs who have to balance golf with life’s responsibilities a chance to compete for a national championship.

Still, competing against golfers such as reigning champion Mike McCoy, a 51-year-old insurance executive from Iowa who will be playing in his 41st USGA event, Chrisman knows the Mid-Am will be a stiff test.

“The Mid-Am is still brutally difficult to get into because a lot of these guys are guys who got out of college, tried to play for a while for a living, get their amateur status back and the next thing they do is try to qualify for the Mid-Am,” Chrisman says. “It’s still a young group that gets there. But it was designed for the working guy.”

A former University of Oregon golfer, Chrisman fits the Mid-Am category well.

Married with three children — ages 11 to 15 — Chrisman puts his golf game on a back burner relative to his day-to-day life. He does sneak in a bucket of balls often during his lunch breaks, he says. And he plays when he can, most often with his 15-year-old son Cole, at Awbrey Glen Golf Club, where he is a member.

But he rarely competes in high-level amateur events, limiting himself primarily to the Oregon Golf Association events that are staged close to home, such as last month’s Mid-Am qualifier.

“I absolutely love playing, but obviously my family and work come first,” Chrisman says.

“You almost have to be a professional amateur if you really want to play in a lot of these events,” he adds. “That’s just not a huge priority in my life. I enjoy playing more now than I ever have. … But it’s not THAT important. If I can mix them in here and there, I do.”

Finding time to compete was not always so difficult.

Chrisman grew up in Boise, Idaho, and was introduced to golf by his father, a passionate player himself. He developed into a fine golfer, playing in prestigious amateur events across the country and earning a golf scholarship to Oregon.

In 1986 at the U.S. Junior, he was paired with Gary Nicklaus, the son of PGA Tour legend Jack Nicklaus, at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio. (Jack Nicklaus founded Muirfield.)

During the second round, Chrisman recalls, an armada of spectators greeted his threesome near the second tee. The chief spectator? The golf great himself.

“I will tell you two of us (in the threesome) got super nervous really fast because all of a sudden we have Jack Nicklaus following us,” Chrisman recounts with a laugh. “I honestly could not tell you anything that happened over the next nine holes.”

He did not advance to match play that year.

As in Chrisman’s previous USGA appearances, the Mid-Am uses two rounds of stroke play to whittle the field down to the lowest 64 golfers for single-elimination match play.

Chrisman wants to be among those 64 for the first time. But considering how little he competes, he is putting an emphasis on cherishing the experience.

“Anything the USGA puts on is as good as it gets,” Chrisman says. “And there will be a lot of good players, which I think will be fun as well.

“I’ve got nothing to lose. It will be a great experience, but I still have lots of other things on my mind. … I think it will be a great opportunity.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7868, zhall@bendbulletin.com.