Rex Caldwell : Former CSUN Golfer Shakes Temper--and PGA’s Money Tree

When Rex Caldwell toured the San Fernando Valley links as a member of the Cal State Northridge golf team in the early 1970s, his master plan was to play as much golf as possible. He knew then he wanted to become a professional.

Fourteen years and three-quarters of a million dollars later, it is safe to say the hard work has been rewarded.

“I wasn’t a good player when I got out of college--not good enough to go on tour,” the 10-year veteran of the Professional Golfers Assn. tour admitted. “But I was good enough to say, ‘Hey, I don’t need a job. I want to keep playing golf.’ So I did.”

CSUN golf Coach Bill Cullum had offered Caldwell a scholarship after seeing him play as a teen-ager at Santa Maria Golf Course. The coach, who has turned out five pro players over 20 years, said he was impressed by Caldwell’s desire, hard work and tunnel vision.

“He didn’t give himself another alternative,” Cullum said. “He was always tuned into playing professional golf.”

Caldwell went with Cullum because no other school offered him a scholarship. And he is still thankful to this day.

“Bill Cullum is one reason why I’m as far along in my career as I am,” said Caldwell, 34, who will tee it up with 143 others at the Riviera Country Club today in the opening round of the 59th Los Angeles Open. “If it wasn’t for him, I’d have gone someplace else and may not even have made the golf team in college.”

Caldwell lived in Pacific Palisades, the site of this year’s tournament, during his years at Northridge, and worked the night shift at a Hollywood supermarket to support himself. The time he spent each afternoon with Cullum’s team prepared him for the grind of the PGA tour, which each week includes practice rounds, four championship rounds and an occasional celebrity pro-am round.

“It was such a dynamic golf program,” said Caldwell, who rejoined his former coach at Northridge Tuesday for a golf exhibition and clinic. “My first year there we played 42 dual matches and 17 tournaments. I was playing competitive golf every day in the spring and that’s what I was looking for. It was a great asset to my career and I learned a lot.”

Said Cullum: “Rex made it on his own. He was self-taught and he worked damn hard to get where he is. He had a lot of dedication and he was highly motivated. He put golf before a lot of things.”

Caldwell, who characterized himself as a “mediocre” college player, was named NCAA Division II All-American in both his seasons at CSUN. He finished 11th in the 1971 NCAA Division II championships and fourth in 1972. That year he won the U.S. International Intercollegiate tournament at Stanford and the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. tournament.

A one-stroke loss to UCLA’s Don Truett, who made a hole-in-one on the final hole of the USC Trojan Invitational tournament, prevented Caldwell from winning a third.

“I probably didn’t improve my golf game a whole lot when I was at Northridge because my mechanics hadn’t really changed any,” he said. “I was just more prepared to play and I was not intimidated by playing against a lot of good players. I couldn’t compete against the guys who were playing at the major universities, though. They could beat me like a drum. But in my little world, Division II, I was a pretty good player.”

The Northridge golf team, which finished second in the 1971 NCAA Division II championships and fourth in ‘72, had a regimented, five-day routine. The team played Mondays at El Caballero Country Club in Tarzana, Tuesdays at Woodland Hills Country Club, Wednesdays at Porter Valley Country Club in Los Angeles, Thursdays at Calabasas Park Golf Course and Fridays at Lakeside Country Club in North Hollywood.

“We had a good array of golf courses, very tough, very short,” said Caldwell, whose lowest round during those two years was a 67 at a tournament in Riverside. “All week long you got to use all your clubs and hit all the shots, so you had plenty of work to improve your game.”

He soon had an even greater opportunity to sharpen his skills at the Arnold Palmer Golf Academy in Stratton, Vt., where Cullum was director of golf until 1975. Cullum brought Caldwell and teammate Bob Lendzion to the academy to work as counselors.

“Basically, baby sitters were all we were,” said Caldwell. “But we had a great practice facility and we got to play golf every day and work on our game.”

When Caldwell turned pro after the summer of ‘72, he looked for a sponsor to pay his expenses. His first such sponsor was George Getty of the Getty Oil Co., whose son had Caldwell as a counselor in Vermont.

Getty died in May, 1973, however, and Caldwell found himself without a backer.

That summer, after having played in 25 tournaments, he borrowed money to enter a “mini-tour”--a circuit played by golfers not good enough to play with the PGA’s elite. He played just well enough to pay off his debts and still afford entry fees for other mini-tour tournaments.

Midway through his first year on the PGA Tour, Caldwell met F. Eugene Dixon--who then owned the Philadelphia 76ers of the National Basketball Assn.--after playing a tournament on a course surrounded by Dixon’s farm.

Dixon threw a party at the end of the tournament. Caldwell says he walked up to the businessman at the end of the night with a proposition.

“Mr. Dixon,” he recalls saying. “How would you like to sponsor a golf pro?”

“Why don’t you talk to me tomorrow,” answered Dixon. He gave Caldwell a check the following day for $10,000.

“It didn’t seem real tough to me,” Caldwell said of asking for the sponsorship. “You can’t receive if you don’t ask. I was down to my last 200 bucks and I didn’t know how I was going to get out of Philadelphia. I was playing in the tournament, I had a hotel bill, I had transportation costs, I had a caddy to pay and I didn’t have enough money to do it.”

Caldwell, who had a practice round of 68 at Riviera Monday, barely made expenses during the three years prior to 1975, his first season on the pro tour. In one of his first PGA tournaments, he actually caddied for an amateur in the pro-am round and was paid $50. He spent that on gasoline to get to Philadelphia for his next tournament, where he met Dixon.

The following years on the tour were bittersweet. Caldwell didn’t make any real money until 1978--and even when he did, he wasn’t winning tournaments. His frustration led to emotional outbursts that made him more notorious for his anger than his golf.

The 6-foot-2, 185-pound golfer--whose mustache, bushy red hair, loud wardrobe and animated manner on the fairways have made him one of the more conspicuous and popular players on the tour--has tempered his emotions considerably over the past seven years. He has averaged $105,543 a year during that span.

Said Caldwell: “I don’t get too upset anymore. I grit my teeth and grumble at myself every once in a while, but I don’t throw clubs anymore. I did that all the time when I first came on tour. I banged them into trees, threw them down and kicked them. I looked like a real (bleep) out there. But I’ve basically grown up.”

Jay Haas, who became familiar with Caldwell’s boisterous tendencies during their eight years together on the tour, agrees.

“Rex has matured as an individual off the course and on the course,” said Haas, who was Caldwell’s playing partner in the third round of last year’s L.A. Open.

Haas remembered one incident in the 1979 PGA Championship at Birmingham, Mich., in particular. He was in the last threesome of the day with Caldwell, who had led Ben Crenshaw by two shots going into the final round.

“At about the 15th hole,” he said, “Rex hits this shot with a 6-iron about 170 yards from the hole. Two seconds after he hits it he’s hollering, ‘Go in!’ as loud as he can, in front of about 5,000 people. It wasn’t one of those shots that looked like it might go in.”

The shot came to rest about 30 feet short and to the left of the hole, and Caldwell’s round of 71 placed him third behind Crenshaw and champion David Graham, who won a three-hole playoff.

The biggest lead Caldwell ever took into the final round of a PGA tournament was the four-stroke advantage he had in the 1980 Buick Open. But his final-round 75 dropped him to third. His biggest paycheck came at the 1983 Las Vegas Pro-Celebrity Classic, where he finished second behind Fuzzy Zoeller and picked up $81,000--more than twice the amount he earned in his first three years on the PGA Tour.

Caldwell made second place his own personal niche that year, finishing as runner-up in four tournaments and placing sixth among the money-winners for the year with a career-high $284,434. The total was $28,276 ahead of Jack Nicklaus.

A string of three consecutive second-place checks began when Keith Fergus beat Caldwell on the first playoff hole at the Bob Hope Desert Classic. Caldwell missed a seven-foot putt and Fergus sank a 20-footer to set up the overtime. The next week he lost to Bob Gilder in eight sudden-death holes at the Phoenix Open after sinking a 40-foot putt on 18. Then he tied for second with Calvin Peete in the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am, which Tom Kite mercifully won in regulation.

“If anything, it almost made him low-key,” Haas pointed out, “because he realized he didn’t have to say things like ‘go in’ on a 6-iron shot to draw attention to himself. His good play would draw the attention.”

Said Caldwell: “That just showed me that I could play and compete against the best in the world. I wasn’t depressed because I didn’t win. There’s a hundred guys on the tour like me who, at any time, can win. But the question is, do you have enough savvy to win? I’m smart enough to win, to hit the golf shots I need to win. It’s just a matter of executing them.”

His first tour victory was in the 1983 LaJet Classic in Abilene, Tex., where he now resides. He came from six shots back on the final day to overtake Lee Trevino with a career-low 66. He won by a stroke to take the $63,000 first prize.

The native of Everett, Wash., whose earnings dropped to $126,400 last year, is still looking for his second victory. His career earnings stand at $780,578 and his goals for the future are basic.

“I want to win a bunch of tournaments,” said Caldwell, whose best 1984 finish was a tie for second behind Hubert Green in the Southern Open. “It’s so satisfying to win a golf tournament and know you beat ‘em all that week--and then get paid accordingly. It’s a lot of fun to stand in the winner’s circle.”

Caldwell, who missed the cut in eight 1984 tournaments and last week’s Phoenix Open, led last year’s L.A. Open midway through. He was the only pro to defy the biting Pacific Palisades winds and shoot sub-par golf over the first two days. His rounds of 72 and 69 gave him a one-shot lead, but he labored through a third-round 76 and finished in a five-way tie for ninth at 288, six strokes behind champion David Edwards.

Caldwell, who walked away with a $10,000 paycheck that weekend, said he was not even aware after that Friday round that he was leading.

“That’s one of the all-time jokes in my career,” he said about his lead. “I was playing so bad, it was incredible. I was driving the ball sideways and hitting everything so poorly. Why I was leading at Riviera after two days is really beyond me.

“I was playing good enough to shoot those scores, but that shouldn’t have been leading the tournament. I knew how poorly I was playing.”