Virginia Golfer May/June 2026 | Page 29

Roots everywhere

The family story doesn’ t end with James, Bill, and Glennie.

On a chilly but brilliantly sunny Wednesday morning in April, Jacob Singleton sat in Hat Creek’ s cozy clubhouse in front of a fire, sipping a cup of coffee. If the name sounds familiar to longtime followers of competitive golf in Virginia, it’ s for good reason.

In the mid-2000s, Jacob developed into a top junior golfer locally, playing out of William Campbell High School just up U. S. 501 in Naruna. Bill was a regular at local courses during Jacob’ s high school career, following him everywhere from high school events, regional tournaments like the Fox Puss, and VSGA junior championships. Jacob was a two-time Lynchburg News & Advance All-Area golfer of the year and earned a scholarship to play for Thomas’ Liberty Flames. He saw significant tournament action his first two seasons as Liberty University( LU) but only played three times as an individual as a junior and didn’ t crack the lineup as a senior.

Jacob said the burnout from playing competitive golf throughout high school and college was real, especially when he wasn’ t getting as much out of his game as he would have hoped. But he wasn’ t sad.

“ It’ s really neat to see— I think— the way the Lord orchestrates everyone’ s stories because I finished golf in college and yeah, to put it in a kind way, I was done,” he said.

Having spent his entire life in central Virginia, Jacob yearned for a change. He put the clubs away and left for California in pursuit of a career in physical therapy. He went to graduate school at Azusa Pacific University near Los Angeles and earned a doctorate before doing a residency at Kaiser Permanente. He became board certified in orthopedics and had various adjunct teaching positions at the University of Southern California and Azusa Pacific.

During that time,“ I touched a golf club twice, maybe,” he said.

Jacob met his wife Carmen at LU, and the two built a family of four boys and one girl. Around 2020, Jacob started hearing rumblings from home. Bill was in his early 60s. He wasn’ t sure how much longer he wanted to run a golf course. In his heart, Jacob knew it was time to return.

Jacob’ s younger brother Josiah was working at LU as a graduate assistant at the time, and he was surprised one

[ ]

THE singleton family tree

BILL & MICHELLE SINGLETON

GLENNIE &

JAMES SINGLETON

JOSIAH & JACOB

SINGLETON vsga. org M AY / J UNE 2026 | V IRGINIA G OLFER 27