The last couple of weeks have been very memorable ones for a couple of 50-something golfers who I”ve happened to cross paths with in the past. Last weekend was a very good one for Michael Allen, and the week prior to that was a most interesting endurance contest for Lance Ten Broeck.
The 50-year-old Allen won the Senior PGA Championship last Sunday at historic Canterbury Country Club outside Cleveland. Designed in 1922 by Herbert Strong, Canterbury is best remembered as the site of the 1979 United States Amateur that was won by Long Beach State golfer Mark O”Meara over local hero John Cook. Both O”Meara and Cook were in the field at last week”s Senior PGA.
So too was Michael Allen. Allen grew up in San Mateo, played locally during his junior golfing years, and competed on the collegiate level at the University of Nevada at Reno. He was a regular on the NCGA circuit in the early 1980s when the fields typically included such future PGA Tour golfers as Scott McCarron, Jeff Wilson, Esteban Toledo, David and Kevin Sutherland, and Keith Clearwater. Allen turned pro in 1984 and tried to make his mark on the European Tour with other Bay Area regulars such as Kris Moe, Dana Banke and U.S. Amateur champ Nathaniel Crosby, the son of crooner Bing Crosby.
Allen had some success on the European Tour from 1986 through 1992 and won his first professional title of note, the 1989 Scottish Open. Every fall he would try and get onto the PGA Tour through the qualifying process. Allen would end up going to Q School a total of 15 times over the course of his career. In 1998, he won the Greater Austin Open on the Nike Tour and when he was on the big tour, he was perpetually on the bubble for top-125 exempt status. Last season he made just less than $1 million on the PGA Tour and finished 108th on the money list, allowing him to keep his tour card for 2009.
In January, Allen turned 50 and in February he received an invitation letter to the PGA Senior on the basis of his career earnings. As Allen stated at last Sunday”s press conference, “I never, never had an invitation for anything. I was honored.”
Following a first-round 2-over-par 74, Allen caught fire over the final 54 holes, carding rounds of 66-67-67 for a 6-under-par 274 aggregate total. He held off Larry Mize and Bruce Fleisher in the process, and with the tournament on the line, he showed no inkling of pressure on the final hole as he ripped a 305-yard tee shot, stuffed a short iron, and knocked in the birdie putt for a two-stroke margin of victory.
With a senior major victory in hand, Allen fully intends to return to the PGA Tour to knock heads with the younger generation. His goal for the remainder of 2009 is to win on the regular tour. Even if he doesn”t, 2009 will go down as a very good year for Michael Allen, the PGA Senior champion.
Growing up in Chicago, you didn”t have to look too far to find talented athletes among the neighboring kids. When I was growing up, the best baseball players around were Greg Luzinski and Ed Farmer. The top hoopsters were Quinn Buckner, C.J. Kupec, Lloyd Walter and Bo Ellis. The best golfer, hands down, was Lance Ten Broeck.
The youngest of four children, Lance was from a golfing family. His father, Willis, was a multiple club champion at Beverly Country Club. When the Western Open came to town, his brothers, Jimmy and Ricky, looped for George Archer.
Lance attended the University of Texas and played on the golf team from 1975-77, just a few years removed from the graduation of Tom Kite and Ben Crenshaw. He was a two-time All-American and played as an amateur in the 1975 U.S. Open at Medinah. After winning the Southwest Conference title in 1977, he turned pro. Like Michael Allen, he spent the next 20-plus years as a tour bubble boy, always within range of the top 125.
In the late 1990s, Ten Broeck started caddying for Jesper Parnevik, his Palm Beach neighbor. The first week he caddied for Parnevik, the colorful Swede won the Greater Greensboro Open. Ten Broeck lit a giant stogie for Parnevik and gave it to him as he tapped in a one-foot putt for the win. Since then, they have maintained a player-caddie partnership.
Because he made more than 150 cuts during the course of his PGA Tour career (159 out of 349), Lance can sign up as an alternate for tour events. Sometimes at the last moment, an exempt player in the field will withdraw, and Ten Broeck is in line to fill that spot.
Such was the case two weeks ago at the Valero Texas Open. Ten Broeck looped that morning for Parnevik, and as he walked off the 18th green, PGA Tour officials told him that if he wanted it, there was a spot in the tourney field some 90 minutes later. Lance rushed off to the local mall to buy a pair of slacks, borrowed clubs from Fredrick Jacobsen, and teed it up. He shot an even-par 71. The next day he had an early tee time and shot 70. His 141 would be just shy of the cut line by two strokes. That afternoon, he was on the bag for Parnevik. During the two-day period, Ten Broeck played 36 holes in a PGA Tour event and caddied in the same event for another 36 holes. He even beat his boss by three strokes.
For Michael Allen, it was a very special weekend at the PGA Senior. He is fully exempt on the Senior Tour and has a major title to his name. For Lance Ten Broeck, it was obviously a very tiring couple of days, but certainly a lot of fun for someone who has always enjoyed life on the PGA Tour. It won”t get him a line on a perpetual trophy, but it was definitely a most noteworthy moment in Texas Open history.
