I”ve been around the game of golf on a competitive level for more than 40 years. When I was first introduced to the game, I wasn”t a rich country club kid nor did I participate in a junior program like the First Tee. Instead, I was a member of that last generation that picked up the game as a caddie.
Caddies were a very common part of the game back in the 1960s. Beginning caddies carried their golfer”s bag and did other mentally lightweight stuff such as replace divots, rake sand traps, attend the flagstick, forecaddie on blind driving holes, and search the rough for lost golf balls.
By the second or third year, a good caddie becomes a looper. You”re able to assist the golfer with strategy and club selection. You help your man read the greens. All of this makes caddying more fun and more profitable, as more often than not you”ll get a bigger tip.
There were two other advantages that went along with spending my formative years at Beverly Country Club on Chicago”s South Side. I met a very interesting array of people of note. I caddied for the likes of Ray Schalk, a Hall of Famer who was one of the clean Black Sox, F-Trooper Forrest Tucker, Hall of Fame announcer Jack Brickhouse, and Dr. Richard Corzatt, the Bears” orthopedic surgeon made famous in Brian”s Song, the story of running back Brian Piccolo. As an aside, my Beverly connection got me the services of Dr. Corzatt when I destroyed my knee playing basketball as a 16-year-old.
The other advantage was that private courses are usually closed on Monday, meaning that they let the hired help participate in making use of the facility. In other words, the caddies got to play the golf course. Sure, they made the caddies tee off in front of the tee boxes so that the tees wouldn”t be hacked up when the members returned on Tuesday. How could you beat playing golf at an exclusive country club every Monday all summer long, one that had hosted the United States Amateur and the PGA Tour”s Western Open?
Of course, the blown out knee coupled with the background of having learned the game at a historic Donald Ross layout (ranked No. 99 in the most recent GolfWeek listing of America”s top classic courses) meant that I would be a competitive golfer over the decades. I played high school golf and competed in the Chicago Amateur as a teenager. Upon coming to California following my graduation from college, I jumped headfirst into the region”s active amateur golf scene. I played in tourneys such as the San Francisco City, Alameda Commuters and State Fair Amateur. I teed it up in mini-tour events that were won by up-and-comers such as Scott McCarron, Kevin Sutherland and Estebon Toledo. I wandered far and wide playing in the Nevada Amateur, Idaho Open, Western Amateur and USGA qualifiers. I even had some local success and helped co-found the Lake County Amateur Golf Circuit.
With all the background and history in the game of golf, I feel that I can state without a bit of hesitation that competing in last weekend”s Lake County Partners at Buckingham was playing golf under the most difficult of playing situations ? ever. Yes, it”s true that I”m pushing 60 years of age and yes, I don”t play the game the way I used to, but I still contend that I”ve never had it so difficult over the course of a two-day tournament.
Part of the problem was the golf course design. When the winds howl at Spanish Bay, Ballybunion or Bandon Dunes, it”s easier to deal with because the setting is a links-style course. Links courses allow you to hit the ball low into the wind, land short of the target, and bounce the ball onto the rock-hard greens that get even harder as the winds suck all the moisture from the surface.
Buckingham is a different story. It is a parkland-style course. Many of the greens are slightly elevated. Bunkers and water protect most of them. This meant that shots had to be carried onto the putting surface. With winds gusting at more than 40 miles per hour, balls that could barely hold the greens invariably ended up with 50-foot putts. Never was lag putting such an important factor in a two-person scramble.
Severe winds magnify ball flight movement with fades turning into slices and draws becoming snap hooks. Balls that did stop on the green would oscillate and then move, sometimes blowing off the green. Throughout the 36 holes of competition, one could observe golfers running onto the greens, trying to mark the ball before it could be blown away.
Geography was also a factor. Buckingham sits in a bowl surrounded by mountains. The heavy winds swirled. It was in my face every time I hit a shot, regardless of which direction in which I was going. Scores were high, nerves were frazzled, and avoiding double bogey took real effort.
Without a doubt, it was the most difficult tourney conditions I had ever faced. Lightning in Alabama, flash flooding in Utah and heat in Las Vegas had nothing on last weekend. It was so bad, I actually thought about leaving competitive golf forever, only playing the game casually in idyllic weather and conditions. Then again, why quit now? It”ll never get worse than it was last weekend.
