The 18th green at Pinehurst # image USGA
Pinehurst # 2, the host of this week’s US Open, rekindles many memories for me, some good some not so.
In 1994 I had been working in a marketing role for Graham Marsh’s golf course design company in Robina since arriving on the Gold Coast in 1991 but, with a history of having caddied for Graham on a more regular basis in Europe, Japan and Australasia earlier, I was keen on maybe just trying my hand in a couple of Senior Tour events in the US.
Graham had joined the Senior Tour (as it was then known) earlier that year and I asked if there might be an opportunity to caddy in two or three events as part of a holiday break for me.
Graham suggested we focus on two or three events around the time of the US Senior Open at Pinehurst in July and so we decided on a regular senior tour event in Nashville followed by the Ford Seniors Players event in Dearborn near Detroit and then on to Pinehurst for the Senior Open.
Graham played well in both the lead-in events and on the Monday after Dearborn we flew south to Pinehurst via Raleigh and then a drive to Pinehurst.
On arrival at the stunning Carolina Hotel near Pinehurst # 2 at around 2.00pm, Graham decided he had enough for the day so I said I would head out and maybe walk nine holes collecting yardages and information on the golf course and do the second nine the following day.
I had caddied at Pinehurst in 1979 in what was then known as the Colgate World Golf Hall of Fame Championship but my knowledge of golf course design had developed significantly since then and as soon as I set foot on the golf course I fell in love with what I was seeing.
The World Golf Hall of Fame had been based at Pinehurst before moving to Ponte Vedra Beach then returning recently to Pinehurst to a venue more in keeping with what it represents.
The feel of the golf course and its typically stunning US Golf Association set up in an environment that just smelt of golf, had me thinking that it was a venue that might just suit Graham’s game and how right that prediction would become.
So carried away with what I was experiencing, I rang Graham from a public phone on the golf course to tell him how much I loved it and that I might be late back for dinner and for him to go ahead without me.
I left the golf course around 6.30 feeling great about what lay ahead.
The field that week included many of the game’s greats including Jack Nicklaus, Tom Weiskopf, Lee Trevino, Raymond Floyd, Dave Stockton and others but as the week transpired Graham worked his way into contention each day.
It was a week interrupted by the summer storms so prevalent in that region of the US at that time of the year. Each day play from the previous day had to be completed the following morning and even heading into the last round, round three needed to be completed on the Sunday morning before the final round could commence.
Zimbabwe’s Simon Hobday was brilliant over the first three rounds and took a two-shot lead into the final round with Marsh six shots off the lead. There were signs late in his third round, however, that Hobday was feeling the pressure of leading for as long as he had, especially when he shanked his tee shot at the par 5 17th and mumbled to himself all the way to the green and took double bogey.
Graham Marsh and yours truly ponder over the shot to the last which would essentially cost him the tournament.
With Hobday continuing to struggle into the final round later that afternoon, by the time we got to the 72nd, Graham had drawn level and stood in the middle of the fairway with 158 to the front and 169 to the hole uphill and into a light breeze. It was between a 5 or 6 iron. Thirty years on it might have been between a 7 and 8 such is the increased distance the ball now travels.
Graham chose the 5 iron and, perhaps still a little in doubt as to whether the 6 might have been a better option, eased out of the 5 and missed the green right. He failed to get up and down and in the meantime Hobday who was falling apart at the seams somehow managed to make par and won by a shot.
There was discussion for some time whether the club choice at the last was the right one and it was a stark reminder of how to respond in the heat of the battle. If you are in a pressure situation on the golf course and deciding between clubs then choose the shorter club and hit it firmly instead of trying to guide in the longer club.
So it was a week of highlights and lowlights and one I will never forget. Undoubtedly however was the brilliance of Pinehurst which, even with a significant restoration in 2011, will again be on display this week.
