The great game of golf has its history, its stories, its accomplishments, and its tradition. Golf is not about the lady who falsified 17 hole-in-ones, it is not about the golfer at last week”s U.S. Amateur Qualifier in Chico who shot 74 and altered his scorecard to a 67, and it is not about petty revisionist history with regard to records.
One of golf”s grand traditions is the course record. I worked for seven years and learned about the game”s traditions at storied Beverly County Club, a Donald Ross course that first opened in 1908. Club history states that the course record was set in 1916 by amateur great Chick Evans, a U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur champion. He carded a 3-under-par 68, a rock-solid number from 6,300 yards with hickory shafts.
In 1928, Scottish professional Tommy Armour, a U.S. Open and British Open titlist, established the new course record at Beverly when he carded a 66. Armour was the head pro at nearby Medinah and played a lot of Chicago-area golf in those days.
Some 39 years later, Tom Weiskopf eclipsed Armour”s course record by shooting a 7-under-par 64. Unlike Evans and Armour, Weiskopf played with balata golf balls, persimmon woods with steel shafts, and the finest irons on the market in 1967, MacGregors, which were designed by Toney Penna, the brother of longtime Beverly head pro Charley Penna. As an aside, Penna”s first club pro job was as an assistant pro at Medinah under Tommy Armour. Also, from 1916 through today, the course has been lengthened from 6,300 yards to just under 7,000 yards.
Within the last four years, Beverly had all of its greens redone to the original Ross specifications from 1908 as the course readies itself for the U.S. Senior Amateur next year and the 2013 Western Amateur. The course record could fall again in one of those events, and should that happen, you can bet that the new record holder will be playing a much tougher course, but will also be playing with equipment far advanced from that used by Weiskopf in 1967.
Regionally, Sonoma Golf Club”s course record was first set during the 1940s by Byron Nelson. It was then broken in the 1990s by mini-tour pro David Carr. Recently it was again eclipsed by Tim Bogue. PGA Tour pro Jim Gallagher Jr. has the course record at the Olympic Club. At the 36-hole Silverado Resort in Napa, Senior Tour pro J.C. Snead holds the South Course record while Napa resident Johnny Miller has the North Course record. Down on the Monterey Peninsula, Tom Watson has the course record at Spanish Bay, Matt Gogel has the low score at Poppy Hills, Phil Mickelson and Luke Donald share the Spyglass mark, and Tom Kite, David Duval and David Frost hold the record at Pebble Beach.
Locally, Harry Beasley holds the course record at Riviera Hills. With all the wine grapes and olive trees sprouting up in the first and second fairways, Harry”s record seems like a longtime lock. Former PGA Tour pro Charley Gibson and former NCGA Hidden Valley Amateur champ John Dunn hold the course record at Hidden Valley Lake. PGA professional Mark Wotherspoon and top-notch amateur Juan Lopez share the Buckingham course record. George Hoberg Jr. has held the course record at Rob Roy for over 30 years and re-established it two times in the 1980s and early 1990s. This columnist set the course record at Adams Springs in 1992.
Sad to say, but a clueless contingent of Rob Roy regulars have taken it upon themselves to question the validity of Hoberg”s long-established and long-recognized course record of 10-under-par 56. The leaders of this convoluted gambit are a collection of 30-somethings. It is reasonable to assume that they could have been in high school when Hoberg established his most recent record and it is for certain that they were nowhere near the Cobb Mountain golf scene some two decades ago. They intend to invite top-notch local players to a “New Course Record” golf day at Rob Roy in a weak attempt to rewrite golf history and establish their own version of a course record.
Their contention is twofold. First of all, they feel that the course that Hoberg shot his 56 on played easier than the current one. They feel it”s just not the same. My thought is that with all the advances in technology, you”d think someone could shoot a 55, if indeed they were talented enough to warrant a new course record.
Secondly, these pseudo-sleuths have supposedly talked to people who claim to have been at Rob Roy (then known as Hobergs Forest Lake) on that day. The contention is that because Hoberg shot the 56 in a Skins Game competition to break his own record of 57, he must have gotten a few gimmee putts. Of course, none of these old-timers were willing to challenge the record over the last 20 years. Why have they suddenly gotten religion now? And isn”t it a whole lot easier to poke at Hoberg, who won over 20 club championships at Rob Roy and played the course close to every day for 45 years, now that he has passed away? He can”t exactly defend himself from the grave. How convenient.
I knew Hoberg very well for some 25 years and competed against him, playing more than 400 rounds of golf. Because we never played for fun and because there was always a trophy or a qualifying spot or cold cash on the line, I observed him as diligently as anyone else I”ve competed against. There were never any issues and he played his golf with honor.
Someday Jonathan Carlson or Doug Quinones or maybe even Lisa Copeland will shoot an 11-under-par 55 and establish a new course record at Rob Roy. Maybe vacationing golfers like top Bay Area amateurs Steve Molinelli or Jeff Wilson will drive the short par-4s, make some putts and do the same. Only then can the name of George Hoberg Jr. be justifiably removed from the record books as the holder of the course record at Rob Roy. The few amateur golfers at Rob Roy who concocted this sham can write themselves down for a triple bogey.
