David “DJ” Jackson was born in Bremerton, WA on November 26, 1949 and passed away at the age of 72 in Allen, WA on December 13, 2021. Here is Kevin Bishop’s tribute to our dear friend and lifelong golf professional.
Dave grew up in the Seattle area and the Harbor area, spending summers at their summer home in Shelton. Played Bayshore a lot as a kid. Went to college at Seattle University and played for coach Bill Meyers. He played on the same team as PNW PGA pros Kevin Bishop, Jeff Coston and Rich Farrell. Was a long time assistant professional and teacher at many clubs in Washington. Started out as an assistant for Rick Adell at Olympia CC in 1974 and went on to work at many clubs under the tutelage of many great golf pros. Next job was Tumwater Valley working with Kevin Bishop as assistants for 6 years under Gary Parker. Dave also worked as an assistant at the following places I know of: Glendale CC / Stan Hyatt, Tacoma CC / Gerry Mehlert, Oaksridge GC / Rich Walker, Bayshore GC / Brian Davis, The First Tee of Olympia / Kevin Bishop, spent some time as the Head Golf Professional at Lake Limerick GC and worked his final 10 years at Lakeland Village GC for Randy Jensen and Eric Briggs. Dave was also on the Board of Directors of the WW Chapter in the early 90’s at that time being one of only a few assistant professionals ever elected to serve on the board. Dave loved to be around his fellow golf professionals at various chapter and section events and rarely missed a business meeting or merchandise show. He truly loved his affiliation with the PGA and was proud to call himself a PGA Professional. In his later years Dave suffered with Parkinson’s disease but you would never know it with a tremendous positive attitude and a friendly greeting on the phone every time: “Good morning, this is DJ.” Dave really enjoyed all sports and could remember names and statistics like you could not believe. He loved talking sports of all kinds. I never heard Dave say a bad word about any of his fellow professionals and had many, many friends through the good times and not so good. We were close friends for the past 50 years and traveled to many events together starting with business schools I and II back in the mid 70’s.
– Kevin Bishop