Jason McClure had heard enough.

Last year, McClure waded through scores of people at Waterville Country Club. His friend, Jay Lasher, had finished his round of golf at the Maine Amateur and had scurried off to find a beverage for himself and for McClure, who carried Lasher's bag.

"I walked in, and after I heard three people ask me what time I was teeing off," McClure said. "I knew I was carrying someone else's bag, and I knew I had to do something about it this year."

McClure, a 1995 graduate of Lewiston High School, did do something about it. One year later, with Lasher now helping out at a golf club in Hilton Head, S.C., McClure qualified for the Maine Amateur on his own. At 10:12 a.m. Tuesday, he'll have his own caddie.

And, he hopes, by Thursday, he'll have a bye into next year's event.

"That's why I got into it this year," McClure said. "Having walked in it last year, it's a big event. I knew next year was at Martindale, I knew the qualifying was there, and I knew the tournament was there and I wanted to get one tournament under my belt first."

McClure was a top golfer for Lewiston in the mid-1990s. He began his freshman year of college at the University of Maine at Farmington on the school's golf team, too.

"My freshman year I was in over my head with not knowing how to handle independence," McClure admitted. "That kind of blew my golf. The past 10 years I'd play a few times here and there, I'd go out, but not play seriously."

McClure had other things on his mind, mostly concerned with music.

"Life just put so many other things on the plate," McClure said. "The college years, I wasn't really thinking about golf, after that I was thinking about traveling with friends to go see concerts and doing all of the other things I missed by concentrating just on golf. But I found it's been itching at me the whole time. As soon as I went back out there, I remembered why I love this so much."

After deciding he wanted to again be serious about the sport, McClure had to take stock in what he had for equipment.

"My irons were fine," McClure said, "but the technology in my driver and my woods was quite a few years off. I didn't go top of the line all the way, but I got some updated equipment. The irons, I was still comfortable with, got a few ... wedges. It's been sweet, really. I feel rejuvenated."

Equipment in place, McClure had to work things out on the employment side of things. He slowly changed jobs, working his way out of the surveying business that had been a part of his life for a long time.

"I've spent years making money, saving money and going to concerts and traveling," McClure said. "This year, I put that all into golf, and it's coming back."

He heard from another former Lewiston athlete, Nate Morin, who invited him to help run Black Bear Graphics, a screen printing and embroidery company based in Industry.

"I had some vacation days," McClure said, "and my boss is as big a nut about golf as I am. Often I'm getting told, 'OK, we're on the tee in an hour.' They've been really supportive of that, too. When he found out I made the tournament, he threw out a couple of vacation days so I could go."

The sport came back slowly at first.

"Earlier this year, I had a couple of rounds in the 90s, and I was like, 'What is going on?'" McClure said. "Then, it clicked. I got down into the low-80s and now I'm in the mid-70s, which is right where I want to be."

McClure qualified at Brunswick earlier this summer, firing a 77.

"I had a putt for 75 on the 18th green," McClure said. "I three-jerked it from 12 feet. I was above the hole. I had figured, if I shot 79, I had a good chance at getting in, so that was the number I had in my head. I was just trying to go out, like (former Lewiston) Coach (Mike) Tiner used to say, it's all about course management. You don't need 300-yard drives to make par.

"I hadn't played a competitive round in 13 years. It was fun to get back out there."

McClure's goal isn't necessarily to go out and win the Maine Amateur on the first try. He is much more realistic than that.

"I would love to make the cut," McClure said. "If I didn't have to qualify next year, that would be great. My goal, really, is to play two solid rounds."

Two solid rounds, he said, would let him play on the final day. Two solid rounds would also qualify him automatically for next year's Maine Amateur, being held in 2009 at McClure's old stomping grounds, Martindale Country Club, where he played his four years of high school golf.

"I know I'm going to have someone behind me on that fourth tee every day I get there," McClure said, referring to former teammate Mark Blanchette, who died in 1996 after being struck by a car. There is a plaque on a bench near the tee on the fourth hole at Martindale in memory of Blanchette.

"I had to get one under my belt so I wasn't nervous at Martindale," McClure said. "I know every inch of that place."

One way or another, though, McClure won't be disappointed. He doesn't let himself see things that way.

"I think about the state of the world, and the conditions that some other people in the world live in, and I get to go play golf," McClure said. "How much luckier could I be? To get to tee it up with the state's best golfers will be a thrill."