Credit Will Swift for being able to shake off the rust quickly. 

Swift, a Selma native, said he’d played only two rounds of golf in six months before taking part in last weekend’s United States Golf Association’s Amateur Four-Ball qualifying tournament at Ol’ Colony Golf Complex in Tuscaloosa.

He probably could’ve fooled his competitors.

Swift and teammate Lew Mitchell shot 68 and were one of two teams to qualify for the four-ball national championship, which will be played May 2-6 at Olympic Club in San Francisco, Calif.

“Playing college golf and playing golf my entire life since I was age 5, when I do get in a tournament I don’t really [think] that I haven’t played. I don’t sit there and think a whole lot that I haven’t hit balls or that I haven’t practiced,” Swift said. “My muscles and mind just kind of take over. It’s not as easy as saying it’s like riding a bike but obviously you are trying to do the exact same things you were when you were playing good. You are trying to hit greens and make putts.”

Swift and Mitchell had to survive a four-team playoff where only two teams would qualify for the national championship. Playing in the second grouping in the playoff allowed them to watch Jeff Helfrich and Chris Moore ahead of them of them make double bogey.

With their playing partners, brothers Jake and Clay Nolen also in the water hazard on their second shots, they knew a par would allow them to advance.

“We had to hit our second shots, but I hit it in there 20 feet and my partner hit it in there 40 feet,” Swift said. “I felt like one of us could two-putt from that distance, if not both of us. Clay hit it in the water unfortunately, and all we had to do was two-putt.”

Both players made par, allowing them to qualify by two shots. The team of Forrest Crabtree and Austin Hynson also advanced with a par on the playoff hole.

Along with a strong connection on the course, Mitchell and Swift also have a family connection. Swift’s wife, Bridges, is Mitchell’s first cousin.

Swift will be looking to add to an already storied career on the links. He’s been named the Alabama Golf Association player of the year three times (2002, 2005, 2006) and has won tournaments all over the state of Alabama.

He started playing the game at age 5 with his grandfather, Eugene Maxwell. He competed in the Bud Burns Dixie Junior Invitational at age 7 at the Selma Country Club.

“As Will got older, he would hang around the country club. Bud Burns was the pro back then, Tommy’s daddy. Bud loved children and he liked for them to hang around out there …,” said Will’s father Buddy Swift, who along with wife Margie owns Swift Drug Company in Selma.

“I kept asking Bud when he was little ‘Bud, does he need a lesson? If he needs a lesson, give him a lesson and charge me for it.’ He’d always say ‘leave him alone, he’ll be alright.’ I guess he kept those kids interested in golf without burning them out.”

Whatever Bud’s approach was seemed to work great for Will, who joined the Morgan Academy golf team and played well enough to earn a golf scholarships to Central Alabama Community College and Auburn University.

Buddy said his son would spend a day on the golf course and then come home and spend the rest of the afternoon working on one shot. He said it was that dedication that made him so good and is the reason he’s able to pick up a club and still play as well as he does.

Swift grew up competing against the likes of two time Masters champion Bubba Watson, who he played against in the junior golf ranks as well as in college.

Now he’ll once again compete against some of the best amateur players in the world.

May’s national championship, which will include 128 teams, will be Swift’s sixth USGA championship.

He’s also played in the U.S. Amateur in 2006 at Hazeltine National Golf Club, the United States Mid-Amateur in 2013 and three USGA state team championships

He said before the championship he hopes to find more time to practice so that he can get back into a groove before he tees it up.

“It’ll be a lot firmer and faster out there, but I’ll basically try to get my feel back and get some repetition in and try to at least get to where I feel like I’m knowing what I’m doing out there anyway,” Will said.

This is the first year of the USGA Four-Ball Championship.

The championship will be televised by Fox Sports 1 from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday. May 5 and 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 6, according to the USGA website.

Will said he and his family come back to Selma as often as possible, but when he’s here he’s usually thinking about anything but golf.

“We try to come down as much as possible … It’s one of those things that when I do come down there, it’s visiting my folks and getting down to my farm and getting away from everything,” Will said.