It was the lazy, carefree days of summer 1968, and 11-year-old Jim Antkiewicz was spending a lot of time riding his bicycle around Economy.

One day, he made a detour of sorts.

"A friend of mine who I'd ride with said 'Jim, I think I know a place where we can make some money,' " Antkiewicz recalled. "And so I followed him."

A 2-mile bike ride later, Antkiewicz found himself in front of the nine-hole Ambridge Country Club. Only an hour after that, he was a caddie (even though the legal age was 12), carrying golf clubs, earning $20 from his very first customer.

And this past Jan. 29, about 41 years later, a still wide-eyed Jim Antkiewicz found himself standing in front of more than 1,000 people at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla., receiving a plaque, a watch, a ring and a very humbling honor -- the 55th recipient of the PGA Golf Professional of the Year.

Antkiewicz, 51, in his 14th year as director of golf at The Club at Nevillewood in Collier, said that when PGA president Brian Whitcomb first called the course to tell him he was receiving the award, "I just sat down and began to cry. That they chose me for the highest honor -- out of 28,000 PGA professionals -- is very mind-boggling."

Antkiewicz is the third Tri-State PGA member to receive the association's top annual honor, following Gary Ellis of the Pittsburgh Field Club (1979) and Bob Ford of Oakmont Country Club (1987).

But the path Antkiewicz took to the PGA Golf Professional of the Year Award is likely a good bit different than most of the 54 previous winners.

"It is a pretty unique story," said Dennis Darak, 58, executive director/CEO of the Tri-State Section PGA and a friend of Antkiewicz's the past 30 years. "Jim didn't have that father who drew him to the game of golf. He wasn't a real outstanding player when he was younger. His parents weren't members of the country club. He pretty much picked up everything on his own."

And it all began with that bike ride to the Ambridge Country Club and the job as a caddie.

It led to Antkiewicz falling in love with golf. Caddies could play for free Mondays. And, after buying golf clubs (2 woods, 5 irons and a putter) at Clabers in the Northern Lights Shopping Center, not only did Antkiewicz play Mondays, but he also would play the other days of the week -- when no one was looking.

"If the course wasn't busy, I'd play holes 2, 3 and 4 at the Ambridge Country Club," said Antkiewicz. "When I did see someone coming, I'd run into the woods and hide."

Antkiewicz was 21, attending Geneva College, and still working as a caddie and in the bag room at Ambridge Country Club, when he received his first big break in golf.

He had volunteered as a marshal for the 1978 PGA championship at Oakmont Country Club and was stationed on the 231-yard, par-3 16th hole when, during a practice round, he struck up a conversation with one of the local golfers who qualified -- Roy Vucinich, the head pro at Allegheny Country Club in Sewickley.

That conversation led to Vucinich hiring Antkiewicz as his assistant a week later. More important, Antkiewicz had someone to show him the ropes.

Four years after that meeting, Antkiewicz was versed enough in golf -- on and off the course -- that he was able to complete the five-part process to become a PGA professional.

The process consisted of passing two education classes, working on a golf course for 36 months, working for a PGA member, going through interviews and averaging 76 or lower during two rounds on a qualifying day.

Passing the golf performance part was the toughest. When Antkiewicz started working at Allegheny Country Club, he was shooting in the upper 70s. With Vucinich tutoring him and with a lot of work, Antkiewicz brought his scores down to the mid-to-low 70s.

Still, it wasn't until his third try -- when he shot 72-71 at Allegheny Country Club -- that Antkiewicz passed the golf-performance requirement.

"That part of the process is all based on playing ability," he said. "You know the target [score]. It's pass-fail. There's no essay question. It's all objective. You're competing against yourself."

Antkiewicz added: "But it wasn't just how to hit a golf ball. Roy Vucinich taught me the nuances of being a club professional. He taught me how to act, to treat others the way you would want to be treated.

"It's about running the entire operation -- everything. There are public-relations skills, public-speaking skills, management practices, business decisions."

In 1983, Antkiewicz left Allegheny Country Club to become the head pro at Highland Country Club in West View. In '95, he moved to Nevillewood, a 7,200-yard Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course built three years earlier.

Nevillewood, which costs $45,000 to join (initiation fee and bond) and about $10,000 a year in dues, played host to the Mario Lemieux Celebrity Invitational from 1998-2005. The Lemieux Invitational brought Nevillewood increased exposure, as well as big-time celebrities such as Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley and Dan Marino and single-day crowds as large as 20,000.

It was a chance for Nevillewood, between Carnegie and Bridgeville, to show off what Antkiewicz considers the golf course's two biggest pluses -- its design and condition.

"It's a Jack Nicklaus-designed course, and Jack's concept is he wants you to see every shot when it lands," said Antkiewicz. "Because this is Western Pennsylvania, that required a great deal of earth-moving.

"Jack doesn't spare any expenses. So, the finished product is just what you would expect. There's not one flaw in the design. It's 18 great golf holes, one after the other."

In the 14 years Antkiewicz has been at Nevillewood, membership has increased and many other improvements have been made.

But that was only a small part of why the PGA selected him as its Golf Professional of the Year.

Service to the PGA nationally and locally are two areas the 15-member PGA Special Awards Committee looks at extensively and, in those two areas, Antkiewicz has certainly put in the time.

"When I was first notified Jim had won the PGA Golf Professional of the Year Award, I told him 'You know, Jim, this is a misnomer. You really didn't win this award. You earned it,' " said Darak, the Tri-State PGA head.

"He has always been a very accessible individual, very service-oriented. Jim would never turn anybody down. No matter what the program, if we needed a volunteer, we could always call Jim.

"Jim has twice been the Tri-State PGA Golf Professional of the Year. He's been PGA director, both nationally and locally. He's been secretary, vice president, president.

"Jim has always enjoyed teaching and promoting junior golf. He just really and truly lives the game of golf. He knows you have to give back to the game to help perpetuate the game for future generations."

During the summer months, when golf is at its busiest, Antkiewicz works seven days a week, 12 hours a day, giving lessons, directing the merchandising department and performing many other administrative duties.

But even when he's working long days, Antkiewicz says, the job remains enjoyable.

"I am probably one of the few people who looks forward to waking up and going to work every morning," said Antkiewicz, who finds time to compete in about a half-dozen Tri-State PGA events each year. "My office is a golf course. Believe me, I have my bad days like everybody else. But I do not dread my job. I love the golf business, love the game, love the different amenities that come with the game."

Antkiewicz believes hard work has been the cornerstone to any success he has had. He said that when he was trying to get better at golf, he would often wake up at 5 a.m. so he could hit balls on the practice range and "outwork the competition."

A saying the late Pittsburgh Pirates broadcaster Bob Prince used to repeat -- "The harder you work the luckier you get." -- has stayed with him since his youth.

And he views the words of another Pittsburgh area sports icon, pro golf great Arnold Palmer, with even more importance.

"About 15 years ago, Arnold Palmer received the Tri-State PGA Distinguished Service Award at a dinner held at the Mountain View Inn near Latrobe," Antkiewicz recalled. "I was there as Tri-State secretary and I was really excited because I knew Arnold was going to make a speech.

"I kept wondering what he would talk about. I thought maybe he'd talk about his win at the 1960 U.S. Open, or about his four Masters victories, or about one of his rounds of golf with a United States president.

"Instead, he spoke for one hour on family values, and you could hear a pin drop. He spoke without notes. I think I realized after that the most important job God gave me was to be a husband and father."

Perhaps Antkiewicz was thinking of Palmer's speech when, at the PGA's annual meeting in 2006 at Kiawah Island (outside Charleston, S.C.) he got up and told everyone about a PGA pro from the Syracuse, N.Y. area, Tony Biata, whose wife was gravely ill with cancer.

The pro from Syracuse had an 8-year-old son to raise and mounting medical expenses. When Antkiewicz was done with his speech, $30,000 was raised in 30 minutes.

"Jim is a very caring person. He's a man of great principle. He's a giver," said David Burstin, who has been a member at Nevillewood almost since the course's opening. "He treats people very fairly, but he knows when to say no. He's just a quality guy."

Burstin was the first person Antkiewicz saw after receiving word that he had been named the 2008 PGA Golf Professional of the Year.

"He looked like a guy in shock," said Burstin. "He was just completely out of it."

But not for too long.

While being the PGA Golf Professional of the Year is something to hang your hat on, Antkiewicz said it wasn't anything he "planned" on or "tried" to win. It isn't like winning a big golf tournament.

Still, after more than 25 years as a PGA professional, he sees plenty he can "plan" on and "try" to accomplish.

He has long been involved with a project -- Clubs for Kids -- in which golf clubs are cut down for underprivileged children. So far, more than 20,000 clubs have been handed out. Helping autistic children learn to play golf is an undertaking for the future.

"That's on my list of mountains to climb," said Antkiewicz. "There's so much more I want to do.

"The game has been so good to me. It's been my career, my life, my livelihood. I want to give back -- all the things it's given me.

"I have so many people I owe. When I left Ambridge Country Club [at age 21] to go to Allegheny Country Club, there was this older member at Ambridge who bought me three golf shirts. He just said, 'Take them. I want you to look good when you go there.' I've never forgotten that.

"So, now it's my time to pass the torch to somebody."