She’ll Lead You Astray Every Time

Golf is the cruelest of sports. Like life, it’s unfair. It’s a harlot. A trollop. It leads you on. It never lives up to its promises. It’s not a sport, it’s bondage. An obsession. A boulevard of broken dreams. It plays with men. And runs off with the butcher.

Take the L. A. Open of 1982, the opening round. The fickle goddess of golf is at her wickedest. She has chosen an unknown innocent, Terry Lynn Mauney, to lead down the primrose path this day. She is blowing into his ear, mussing his hair. She has him helpless, like a lovesick schoolboy.

He has just shot the lowest score ever at Riviera Country Club, lower than Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus or even Bobby Jones ever shot here. Visions of Cadillacs are dancing in Terry Mauney’s (pronounced Mooney’s) head. Wherever he looks he can see fame and fortune.

He is leading the L.A. Open by four shots with a 63. He is six shots better than Tom Watson, five better than Johnny Miller and 20 ahead of some competitors. He is on the late news, the A-wire, Page 1. The world is waiting to hear what he thinks of the tax laws, the Middle East crisis or how he holds his hands at address and what his golfing secret is.

Heady stuff for a 31-year-old pro from North Carolina who has never dazzled the golf world before, in fact who has never won a tournament and who amassed, if that’s the word, only $15,341 the year before and has shot his way into the tournament in a five-hole playoff for the last qualifying spot. He can’t believe this beautiful lady could pick him, of all people.

So, this bitch goddess of golf success continued to smile on him, you ask? You don’t know this bawd. By the next days, he was shooting 73s and 74s. Watson was rushing right by him to the championship.

By September, he was in a station wagon on his way home. He had lost his tour card, he needed $31,000 in about two tournaments to stay on the road. The painted tramp had left him standing in the church with confetti in his hair, the orchestra playing, the preacher waiting--while she was off sweet-talking some other poor soul.

Today, Terry Mauney is a sports anchorman at WBTV, Channel 3 in Charlotte, far from the siren of golf, safe from her blandishments ever again.

An isolated instance? Hardly. This bedizened lady has lavished her false favors on generations of poor saps in cleats who fall for her phony allures. In 1950, an out-of-work pro from Alabama, one Lee Mackey Jr., electrified the golfing world by breaking the U.S. Open record with an opening score of 64 at the storied Merion Cricket Club in Philadelphia.

Not to worry. Hogan won the tournament. Mackey shot an 81 the next day and has become just another trivia question and another conquest for the whore of the fairways.

In 1966, a totally unknown Texas pro named Rives McBee tied the Open record again with a 64 in the second round. Unfortunately, he surrounded it with 76, 74 and 78. Chalk up another for the shady lady from shady lanes, i.e., the deep rough.

The L. A. Open at Riviera is a favorite pickup joint for her. They should nail her for soliciting, lewd conduct.

In 1975, she batted her eyes at an unsuspecting pro named Pat Fitzsimons. In his case, the courtship was more torrid. At one stretch, he chipped in out of a trap at 9, birdied 10 and eagled 11 on the way to a 64. She even let him win the tournament.

It was the last one he would win. Not many years later, he was back in Coos Bay, Ore., wondering what had become of the lady with the hour-glass figure, the come-hither eyes and the glass slippers.

In 1977, she picked this guileless kid from Phoenix. Tom Purtzer had never won anything either when he followed the veiled lady to the championship with rounds of 68-76-66-72. She stayed with him longer than most, but he was also to find a note on the pillow and the closets emptied before very long.

It took him seven years to win another tournament. But, he was lucky. He’s still on the tour and playing in L.A. again this year. She didn’t ruin him, only hypnotized him for a little bit. Tom got over her.

Jerry Lanston Wadkins is getting her divided attention at the L.A. Open at Riviera this year. Lanny tied the course record of 63 in his opening round Thursday.

But don’t look for Wadkins to fall for the silken hose and painted cheeks and high heels and plunging neckline. He knows this old coquette has seen better days. He knows what she looks like in the morning. He knows she’ll take his money, rob his pride and leave him for the first gigolo or sailor off a tanker who comes along.

Lanny’s not your basic rube in the city. He knows golf for the fraud she is. He has seen the bright lights and the glitter before. As far as he is concerned, she’s nobody’s sweetheart now. He doesn’t fancy her, somehow.

Lanny’s no virgin at golf. He’s been up and down the circuit. This would not be his first tournament win. It would be his 14th. He’s not going to be standing in the rain wondering where everybody went.

The old girl may be losing her touch. She better run to the mirror and see if the lines are showing around the eyes, if the hair is black at the roots, if the net stockings have a hole in them.

They may be getting wise to her. She may go tottering around on her spiked heels wondering, “Whatever became of those nice, innocent, good-looking young boys who had never been to town before? Whatever became of boys like that--what was his name? Mooney?”

All she gets now is guys who tell her: “Get outta here before I call the cops!”