Hitting golf balls in faraway places has been something of a lifelong passion combined with my working golf assignments. The interviews with the great players, movie stars, royalty and everyday people is what has made a career in golf more of a lifestyle and not just a job.
The first travel assignment as a cub reporter was the 1983 Bing Crosby Pro-am for CKWX radio and The Columbian newspaper in Monterey, California. That week I stumbled through interviews with Jack Nick-laus, Clint Eastwood and Greg Norman. When you are fresh out of journalism school, the superstars of the world have a way of being a bit intimidating.
Eastwood watched me stumble through the gallery ropes and the taped interview with Nicklaus would have been much clearer if the microphone was plugged in. Things you learn while on the job.
It is the people you meet along the journey of life that make it so special. Andy Simpson, a full-time caddy at St. Andrews who was working The Crosby for a rich American, was one of many characters I have met on the fairways of the world.
In three months I was heading off to Scotland to play in the British Amateur Golf Championship at Turnberry G.C. The Royal & Ancient Golf Club at St. Andrews and The Old Course was on the agenda, so I agreed to meet Andy in the Swilken Bar at The Old Course Hotel, where he spends most of his life when not caddying.
The first of three journeys to Great Britain started with a round of golf overlooking the English Channel at Royal St. Georges G.C. on the cliffs of Dover. A Sunderland rain suit was a most essential purchase in the golf shop before heading out to experience links golf for the first time.
Rough in the U.K. is usually knee-high and thick where you have trouble finding a soccer ball, let alone a golf ball. The fairways and greens are hard and firm with bump-and-run a shot that is mandatory if you ever want to make a par.
The goal was to play well in the British Amateur, with the assignment being a weekly column for The Columbian newspaper. The challenge was to get the stories back to the sports editor in an era before Internet and fax machines. After golf, we left our clubs in the boot of the rental car then hopped on a hovercraft and went to France for three days where the first of five columns was filed by telephone horn a bar in Paris. Isn't this what journalists do?
Of course, the first thing I thought of while atop the Eiffel Tower was this would be a great place to launch a tee shot from. Too bad I left my clubs back in England. We left Paris after getting too close to a student riot and found that tear gas really does sting the eyes.
Over a period of 36 days, we played golf 33 times at 27 different courses. One day it was Carnoustie in the morning and The Old Course at St. Andrews in the afternoon. Troon, Prestwick, Western Gailes, Royal Birk-dale, Royal Dornoch and Murifield were a few of the many, fabulous links courses on this trip.
I completed the pilgrimage by finally arriving on the hallowed ground of St. Andrews, Scotland. This is the home of golf, where the game developed and the rules were determined back in the 15th century.
Hitting the opening tee shot at St. Andrews is an awesome experience, knowing that almost every great player in the game has teed off from that hallowed spot. Simpson carried my bag for two rounds on that visit and four years later, upon my return, he had married a rich American woman and was now a member of the club and played every day.
A few weeks after returning from the journey through the U.K., it was breakfast with Arnold Palmer in Calgary. Arnie would be in Whistler in two weeks and my assignment was to write a preview article for The Whistier Question.
I told Arnie that I had played Royal Troon with a local who had recounted the story of how Palmer won the 1961 Open. Palmer finished six ahead of Kel Nagle and 13 strokes clear of those in third place. This was a tournament close to Arnie's heart and he opened up to me with stories of how he won both of his British Open titles.
The drive up Magnolia Lane in a yellow cab was how I arrived at Augusta National Golf Club. Not as a player but a bona-fide member of the media. My assignment was a daily diary with Dave Barr at The Masters. Ban was at the peak of his game and it was a thrill to follow him through both the 1987 and 1988 Masters.
My first experience at Augusta was the year Larry Mize chipped in from the right side of 12 to rob Greg Norman in a playoff. The next year, Sandy Lyle hit a brilliant shot from the fairway bunker on 18 to secure par and win the green jacket. Barr played well both years.
We staged three events during the 1980s to promote the long-drive talents of Kelly Murray. From the roof of Vancouver's Pan Pacific Hotel, Murray defeated U.S. long-drive champion Art Sellinger with a monster blast that splashed into Coal Harbor at 367 yards. The next year, from the same perch above Vancouver harbour, Murray defeated Japanese champion Yasushi Taki and Mike Gorton.
Our efforts to have Guinness Book of World Records recognize the rooftop challenge failed when they said we were not able to accurately measure the drives. We solved that problem at the Fairmont Hot Springs Resort when Murray set the Guirmess world record drive on an airport runway strip with a blast of 684 yards.
Of course, it was again essential for me to test the platform and hit my lifetime best on flat ground with a bounce, bounce, roll, roll, jiggle drive of 341 yards. The drive off the top of Mt. Fuji was longer, but we could not measure it.
The journey through Asia was a five-year chapter in the inexorable pursuit of interesting places to play golf. Tokyo was home base for the five years while visiting 12 countries over two seasons on the Asian Golf Circuit. Each stop on the tour Murray and I would perform a long-drive/trick-shot exhibition and play the tournament.
The first stop was the Philippines, where Murray's life was threatened and he was robbed at knifepoint. While in Malaysia, a most memorable round was played with the King of Malaysia, The Sultan Iskandar of Johor. The king played by his own set of rules giving new meaning to a royal mulligan.
The first year, the tour went to Calcutta and the next year we stopped in New Delhi. While in Calcutta, I managed to meet Mother Teresa and was able to talk with her for a few minutes. I regret that I did not ask her to bless my putter.
The Royal Calcutta Golf Course, founded in 1829, has the distinction of being the first golf course in the world built outside Britain. It also has goats on the greens, cobras in the rough, vultures in the trees and people bathing and washing their clothes in the lakes while golfers hit over their heads.
My lead sentence, "If there was a worse place to place golf than in Hell - it must be in Calcutta," did not go over too well with the Indian government. The organizers of the Wills Indian Open were told to bar me from the tournament and would have me banished from the country if I could not explain why I had written what I had. They accepted my explanation and I was allowed to stay in the country and play in their tournament.
The journey through Asia ended in the fall of 1994 and I returned to Canada long enough to get a new passport and then it was back on the road with a television series, The Golf Show Great Golf Destinations.
The show, through syndication with Fox Sports International, has gone to air in 32 countries worldwide and was inflight on all Air Canada International flights for almost two years. With stops in Spain, China, South Africa, Japan, Thailand, Mexico, the U.S.A. and Canada we produced 65 episodes.
Playing guests included PGA Tour players Tony Jacklin in Florida, Bob Rosburg in Palm Springs and David Frost in South Africa. Hollywood actor Kevin Sorbo, star of Hercules and Andromeda, appeared in two episodes and was prepared to do more. Alice Cooper and Neil Young, two avid golfers, had both agreed to appear in the show. PGA TOUR players Peter Jacobsen, Craig Parry and Johnny Miller had all said they would be guests.
And then the world changed with the terrorist events of 9/11. With the spiralling costs of producing television and reluctant sponsors, the TV show was put on a shelf to be considered again at a future date.
We golfed in some faraway places and there were a few notable shots along the way. Valderamma in Spain, Sun City, South Africa and Mission Hills Resort in Shenzhen, China, were just a few.
The journey continues as the game grows worldwide. It has been an interesting assignment. |
