Billy Clements may be familiar to you from the golf course or as a Village of Pennecamp neighbor, but you may not be aware that he served as a fire captain with the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department.
Billy Clements isn’t afraid to shake things up a little bit.
As a young adult, he transitioned from dirt biking to golf, which he would pursue for the rest of his life. When he was 35, he likewise went from being a barber to being a firefighter.
“It was the adrenaline rush and the thrill — running into burning buildings and (saving) people,” he said.
“Every call was different. And it was all hours of the day and night. We got woken up from a dead sleep to go to God knows what.”
After 25 years in the job, he retired as a captain from Jacksonville Fire and Rescue in 2013. He was one of eight children when he came to Florida, but he grew up in Georgia. In addition, his father had nine more children from a previous marriage.
“Back then, the more kids you had, the more help you had on the farm,” Clements said. “I had four brothers and three sisters, and I’m the youngest.”
He stated his elder brother, who became like a father to him when his father died when he was five, moved to Florida in 1968, and he followed suit.
He went to barber school after that and finally opened his own barbershop.
He was ready for something new by 1985, and he enrolled at the fire academy to train as a fireman. He said some calls were difficult, such as a late-night call that led them to a car that was so heavily on fire that they didn’t realize it was a police car with a deceased officer in there until they put out the flames. Working out of a huge city like Jacksonville, he claims to have seen practically everything.
“There are good memories of doing CPR and saving people — when you get to save people as a result of your training. It was different and challenging every shift,” he said.
Clements, too, began his golf career at the age of 23, he recalled. He used to enjoy riding dirt bikes, but after an accident, he decided he “needed a new hobby.”
He decided to play golf and has won numerous tournaments since then. He’s qualified for the USGA Senior Amateur Championship, has seven holes-in-one, and fired a 64 at Cane Garden Country Club to break the Jacaranda/Allamanda blue-tee course record.
Clements said what attracted him to the sport is also what turns many others off: it’s difficult.
“I like the challenge of golf,” he said. “You never really accomplish the sport. One day you have it, and one day you don’t. You have to work to get better.” Clements also said, “(Golf) is peaceful. I enjoy going out and practicing. You get out of it what you put into it. I always say, the more you practice the luckier you get.”
Golf is also how he met his wife, Robin, with whom he has been engaged for almost 25 years.
“I met Robin on the golf course,” he said. “She lived on the course I used to play. I used to ride by her house when I’d play golf and see her working in the yard.”