I DEBATED ABOUT whether I should let this not-so-secret secret slip so soon.
It would have come out eventually, so here goes: I’m a pretty average golfer. Possibly below-average.
Playing bogey golf is something I’m proud of and typically shoot for.
I can shoot straight more often than not but sometimes it’s straight into the adjacent fairway, straight into water hazards, straight into sand traps and straight out of bounds.
Thank goodness I can putt a little, something I picked up from two great golf coaches in high school, Jim Kerns, a longtime Port Townsend teacher and coach and Port Townsend Golf Club assistant pro and current Redskins coach Gabe Tonan.
I do have a great deal of respect for the game of golf and what those of us who play the sport can learn from it, and I have covered the local high school golf teams, written profiles on local prep golfers, entered a ton of local golf club scores on our Scoreboard page and wrote hole-in-one briefs while working for the Peninsula Daily News the last two years.
I know a lot of local players by name from that experience and I hope to meet you in person soon.
In a small change from recent years, send your golf scores, holes-in-one, upcoming tournaments or demo days information along to pdngolf@gmail.com or sports@peninsuladailynews.com (both preferably) and it will make the sports page.
Ludlow men vs. women
In local happenings, the Port Ludlow Golf Club 18-Hole Women’s Club hosted the men last Tuesday with a game called two-person criss-cross.
Each player in the partnership, one from the women’s club and one from the men’s club, played 18 holes of stroke play.
Here’s how it works: front nine holes are paired up with the corresponding back nine holes. In other words, think of No. 1 and No. 10 as a pair, No. 2 and No. 11 and so on up to No. 9 and No. 18.
Following the round, compare the scores you recorded on No. 1 and No. 10 and circle the lower of the two, continue through 18 and then add up the nine holes you’ve circled for your total score.
The game works best with flights, and three holes must be used by each player.
First flight winners for the day were Peggy Selby and Ed Berthiaume with 24 while second flight winners were Catherine High and Hugh Pennington with a 23.
Port Ludlow’s nine-hole women’s club hosted players from around the North Olympic Peninsula for an exchange last Thursday.
Exchange winners were Port Ludlow’s Lucy Stone and Kathy Snider, and Jo Hendrickson and Pat Charters of Cedars at Dungeness Golf Course in Sequim.
Full results for both events can be found in Scoreboard on page B2 today.
Tours in Northwest
The Pacific Northwest was graced by two of the three major American professional tours this past weekend as the Champions Tour’s Boeing Classic teed off at the Tournament Players Club (TPC) Snoqualmie Ridge, and the Ladies Professional Golf Association’s(LPGA) Safeway Classic visited Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club’s Ghost Creek Course northwest of Portland, Ore.
Roberts wins Classic
Loren Roberts overcame Mark O’Meara for the Boeing Classic title after birdieing his final two holes of the three-day event for a tournament record total of 18-under 198.
Roberts claimed his third win this season on the Champions Tour while keeping O’Meara winless on U.S. soil since winning the 1998 Masters.
The Boeing Classic is a nice accomplishment to be certain but I would expect O’Meara wouldn’t trade his Green Jacket or his British Open win, also in 1998, for all of the Champions Tour wins in the world.
Down at Pumpkin Ridge, South Korea’s M.J. Hur earned an oversized check for $255,000 after defeating Suzann Pettersen and Michele Redman in a two-hole, sudden-death playoff .
Pumpkin Ridge is most famous as the site of Tiger Woods unprecedented third consecutive U.S. Amateur championship in 1996.
Tiger turned pro shortly after that feat and apparently he has had a bit of an impact on the game of golf in the last 13 years.
Tourneys in Seattle
Last week’s tournaments are a prelude for two large United States Golf Association (USGA) events in the greater Seattle area in 2010, the 31st U.S. Senior Open at Sahalee Country Club, which takes place July 26-Aug. 1, 2010 and the 2010 U.S. Amateur at Chambers Bay Aug. 23-Aug. 29, 2010.
A private club, Sahalee has hosted one major in its history, the 1998 PGA Championship, as well as the 2002 World Golf Championship, while Pierce County-owned Chambers Bay is playing host to its first significant championship since opening in 2007.
The 2010 U.S. Amateur will serve as a dress rehearsal for the 2015 U.S. Open, also scheduled for Chambers Bay.
Meeting with Sallee
Finally, it would be remiss of me if I didn’t thank Billy Sallee for his 8 ½ years of service in writing the golf column for the Peninsula Daily News.
Week in and week out Sallee chronicled our area’s public and private courses and the big moments of professional golf with a great deal of love and concern.
Sallee and his wife, Judith, invited me to their home near Carlsborg for a chat this week and left me with a solid sense of purpose about writing this column and a beautiful box of Slazenger golf balls.
I’ve always had good luck with that brand and I haven’t lost any of them yet, so I’ve got that going for me, which is nice (think “Caddyshack”).
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Michael Carman is the golf columnist for the Peninsula Daily News. He can be reached at 360-504-0181 or pdngolf@gmail.com. His columns appear on Wednesdays.