On the Links ?By John Berry
This past Wednesday, I spent an idyllic 90 minutes on the 16th tee at Bodega Harbour Golf Links. For those of you who might be unfamiliar with Bodega, the 16th is the course”s signature hole. A dogleg left par-4, the tee shot requires a 170-yard carry over marshland. The heart of the distant fairway is 200 yards from the tee, and some 30 yards beyond that is the Pacific Ocean. Of course, you can attack the green some 280 yards away in the quest for an easy eagle or messy triple-bogey. The hole is Robert Trent Jones II at his finest.
While the place was Bodega Harbour, the event was the second match of the year for the seven high school golf teams that make up the Coastal Mountain Conference South. I always monitor the 16th tee because it has a tendency to back up play, because the marsh is an environmentally sensitive area and I feel the need to remind kids to leave their Pro V1s in the marsh, and because I like to observe the thought process of the 40 golfers as they play this feast-or-famine hole.
During the dead times between groups, I found myself doing a little bit of thinking about myself and my relation to the game of golf. I will be playing in this weekend”s Lake County Partners Two Man Scramble, and the thought occurred to me that this will mark the 45th year I have been playing the game on a competitive level.
There was a point during my formative years when I would play 20-25 tournaments annually. This was before the advent of the Lake County Amateur Golf Circuit, so the vast majority of those events were out of the area. One weekend I”d be in Susanville, the next weekend I”d be in Weed, and after that I might be in Reno or Stockton.
In many ways it was very similar to the life of a mini-tour professional. There were tournaments, practice rounds, hotels and restaurants. There was a shoebox filled with yardage books and course notes. Then there were two boxes, and ultimately there were six. There were shag bags filled with really good balls, there were backup wedges, putters and drivers, extra shoes, and clothing for all sorts of weather conditions.
I thought nothing of driving to Jackpot, Nevada, to play in the Idaho Open or of flying to Bento Harbor, Michigan, to play in the Western Amateur. How”s that for a pair of golfing oxymorons? The Idaho Open in Nevada and the Western Am in the Eastern Time Zone. Having a real job to rely on made it all a lot of fun. I never had to stand over a downhill 6-footer and worry that a yipped putt would make paying the mortgage that much more difficult. I was an amateur golfer competing on a high level.
Yet time moves on. After a few decades of this, you get tired of staying in motels, eating in the same diner in Modesto, or having to play in a cold rain in Antioch because, after all, golf is played out of doors and bad weather is no excuse for canceling a round of golf. Over time, that serious but friendly weekly game with Charles Creecy and Gary Bagnani goes by the wayside as they retire and move to places in Southern California with a lot more sunshine. You end up replacing Gary and Charles with your two children, Nick and Liz, as regular partners, but even that changes over time. One day you”re showing Nick how to grip his junior club, and the next thing you know, he”s beating you and everyone else in sight at the Lake County Open.
Your skills also start to diminish as you push toward 50 years of age. You get on the machine at Haggin Oaks only to learn that your swing speed is 89 miles per hour and you carry your tee shots a mere 219 yards. You also find that you play a much different game. I recall a time when I eagled the 502-yard par-5 18th at Haggin in the Publinks hitting driver, 6-iron and tap-in putt. The driver was persimmon and the ball was balata. Nowadays, I hit driver, 3-wood, 9-iron and am more than happy to put a five down on the scorecard … providing I don”t three-putt. In the vernacular of baseball, I”ve gone from power pitcher to knuckleballer to batting practice pitcher.
In the earliest days of the PGA Senior Tour, pundits talked about how the senior greats hit a proverbial wall once they hit 55 years of age. Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Lee Trevino won senior majors and dominated their peers on the over-50 set when they first arrived. Such was not the case when they turned 55. The ball just didn”t go as far and those steely nerves were just a little bit shakier.
As I stated earlier, this weekend I tee it up in the Two Man at Buckingham. It”s the opening event in what marks the 17th season of the local circuit. I will be partnering up with my son Nick, who is currently a freshman at UC Davis. One year ago Nick was leading his Kelseyville High School golf team to another conference championship as well as winning the Lake County Open.
Nowadays, he plays golf a couple of times a month and is nowhere near the scratch golfer he was last August. Put that together with my diminishing skills and no one at the Triple Bogey Saloon is listing us as favorites to win this weekend. From our perspective, we want to win, but in reality, a top-five finish would be just fine.
Yet when all is said and done, it will be a nice weekend of golf, playing alongside my son who happens to be a really good golfer and an even better person. And as I started to pack up my motorized cart to drive back to the scoreboard area at Bodega Harbour, it occurred to me that I have come full circle with the game of golf. I used to simply play for the fun with my caddie friends on Mondays when the country club was closed. Now, when I do happen to compete on a greatly downsized schedule, it”s because I like the people and the setting. There won”t be any more USGA or NCGA qualifiers nor will there be any more quests to be the oldest participant in the Chicago Amateur. It will simply be about enjoying the game. Oh … and also trying to find a putter that works better than the one I currently have in my bag.
