BETTER WITH AGE : Once the King of the Mini-Tours, Larry Mowry Has Made Himself Right at Home on Senior Golf Circuit

Larry Mowry stood beside the 18th green at Horseshoe Bend Country Club in Roswell, Ga., waiting for Arnold Palmer and Gary Player to putt.

“Pinch me,” he said to his caddy. “I have to be dreaming. Here I am waiting for Arnold Palmer and Gary Player to putt out so I can hear the cheers for winning the tournament. Can you believe that?”

The occasion was the Pepsi Senior Challenge Oct. 11, 1987, and, by firing a six-under 66 on the final round, Mowry wiped out Palmer’s four-stroke lead and won his second tournament on the Senior Tour in three weeks. He won by two strokes, and when he came up to the final green holding a two-stroke lead, Mowry, a resident of nearby Atlanta, received a standing ovation. He was overwhelmed.

Every golfer on the 50 and over tour will tell you how great the Senior Tour is, but it is unlikely that any of them appreciate it any more than Mowry. It has caused a complete change in his life style.

In 13 adventurous years on the regular tour, Mowry had earnings of $87,715. In his first season as a Senior, although he had to qualify for each tournament until he won at Richmond, Va., on Sept. 20, he earned $200,151, good for 13th on the list and a season free of qualifying. Talk about a new lease.

Mowry talked about his sudden success when he returned to his birthplace, San Diego, for the Mony Tournament of Champions event in the Senior Division. It was the first time in almost 30 years as a professional that Mowry qualified for the tournament that requires a tour victory to qualify.

His homecoming was punctuated by greetings from old friends and an unprecedented demand for autographs. He wound up seventh in the rain-shortened event. Mowry is talking about returning to the San Diego area. He will be back in Southern California for another visit and to play in the Vintage Invitational in Indian Wells March 3-6 and the GTE tournament at Wood Ranch in Simi Valley the next weekend. His dream keeps getting better all the time.

Life wasn’t always so wonderful. Shortly after becoming a professional golfer in 1959, Mowry became well known as a playboy. “I was the guy mothers told their daughters to stay away from,” laughed the 6-foot 2-inch, 194-pound, gray-haired Mowry. Life was having fun and golf was incidental.

Later, Mowry became known as the king of the mini-tours. From 1976 through 1983, he won 106 mini-tour events.

On the PGA Tour, he had more fun than victories. He never won the tournament that would have qualified him for the Masters. In fact, the only two tournaments he won, were the Rebel Yell in 1968 and the Magnolia the next year. Both were held at the same time as the Masters and were not recognized as tour victories.

It was a crazy life. In those days, most of the players of Mowry’s caliber had to try to qualify Monday to make the field for the tournament that started Thursday. They were called “rabbits.” Last year, Mowry became a “rabbit” again, needing to qualify each Monday for four spots open for a Seniors event that usually would start Friday.

“The Tour is set up for the famous golfers,” Mowry said. “They earned the fame years ago, and now they’re getting the money they deserve. I find it hard to believe I’m now one of them. Being a rabbit and playing the mini-tours toughened me up for the success I’m now enjoying. And I mean enjoying.”

Lloyd Mangrum, one of the well- known PGA players when Mowry broke in, took a liking to the youngster who was born in San Diego. He started taking Mowry along with him in his van to the tournaments on the tour.

“He was one of a number of people who helped me,” Mowry said. “I worked at the Bonita Golf Course (near San Diego) until I could save enough money to rejoin the tour. Each time I went broke, I would return to Bonita and Russ Osgood, the manager of the course, would give me a job. Sometimes, he would overpay me, and other times, he would just give me money and back I would go on the tour.

“You would go out on Monday and try to qualify. If you made it, then you would try to negotiate a hotel room for the rest of the week. It was a good week if you won $200. Now, $200 isn’t even enough to pay your caddy.”

During his time on the regular tour, Mowry encountered more problems than just other golfers. There were two marriages that failed and there was a drinking problem. More than a decade ago, Mowry became a recovering alcoholic. To this day, he can give you the exact time he took his last drink, the day, the hour and even the minute.

It got so bad, Mowry couldn’t play a round of golf without liquor in his bag. When it became too obvious, he would put the booze in a green soft drink bottle.

“I was hanging out with Doug Sanders and Raymond Floyd, some of the real high rollers out there,” he said. “The only thing was, they could live it up and still win a tournament. I couldn’t.”

He was still drinking heavily when he was the king of the mini-tours. Many of the players now starring on the regular tour challenged him. Among them were Larry Mize, Joey Sindelar, Bob Tway and Mark Calcavecchia. They all fired and fell back.

The mini-tour was for golfers who failed to make it through the PGA qualifying school. Each pro put up his own money, usually $500, and it took a victory or a very high finish to make any money. Each event was 36 holes.

Mowry dominated the Space Coast (Florida) tour, winning more than 100 events between 1976 and 1983. In a typical week, Mowry would tee it up in a tournament Thursday and Friday, drive 100 or so miles Friday night and tee it up in another tournament Saturday and Sunday. It was back in the car for a drive to another event Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday was his day of rest.

“It wasn’t much fun,” Mowry recalled. “Putting up your own money, you had to blast off on the first tee. There was no time for fun. If you had a couple of bad tournaments, you had to go to work and get some fresh money.”

It was after his battles on the regular tour that Mowry met his present wife, Karen. They will celebrate their 15th anniversary April 3.

“Karen went through some rough times,” Mowry said. “Like me, though, she is really enjoying life on the Senior Tour.”

In 1983, the mini-tours were fading out. The golfers just below tour level were going to Europe or Asia to play.

“It was getting tougher and tougher,” Mowry said. “The only purse was what the golfers put up. With smaller fields, it was impossible to make money. Once again, I had to go to work.

“I landed a job as a teaching pro in Colorado. Then, in 1985, I went to the Metropolitan Club in Atlanta, where Larry Nelson was the manager. It was an entirely different kind of job. I didn’t even have time to play golf. I was too busy worrying about hamburgers. I had to keep employees, as well as members, happy. There wasn’t even time to practice. When I became eligible for the Senior Tour in the fall of 1986, I was too busy to go to qualifying school. I knew I could play, though, so when 1987 started, I became a rabbit again.

“After one tournament ended, Karen and I would get in the car and rush to make a Monday qualifying time at the next. It was usually 80 guys trying to win four spots. Playing in the mini-tours had toughened me. I missed qualifying only once, and was the leading qualifier several times.”

For a while, he lacked consistency. For instance, in the Charley Pride tournament at Albuquerque, N.M., in early May, he shot a 10-under par 62 on the final round. It was an improvement of 19 strokes over his previous round. Actually, there was a confidence problem, too.

Finally, on the last round of the U.S. Seniors Open at Brooklawn Country Club in Fairfield, Conn., July 12, he found himself paired with Arnold Palmer.

“I was terrified when I called to get my tee time and found I was paired with him,” Mowry said. “I knew what he had meant to pro golf and how the fans felt about him. But I wasn’t prepared for what it was really like playing with him.

“His followers didn’t clap politely. They were like a football crowd, yelling and cheering. It was obvious he loved it. But, he was also very considerate of me.

“I shot a 71 and finished 10th in the Open. Right there was where I regained the confidence I had on the mini-tours. Driving to Syracuse that night, I told my wife, ‘Now I know I can play under pressure.’ ”

It was the turning point. He began to show steady improvement, finishing in the top 10 in almost all tournaments, despite having to qualify on Monday. It was at Richmond, Va., in the Crestar tournament that he made history. Never before had a Monday qualifier won a tournament on the Senior Tour. The week before, in the World Seniors Invitational, he finished tied for fifth. He still had to qualify.

Mowry was two shots behind the leader, Bob Charles, going into the final round at Richmond. He shot a five-under-par 67 in the last round, climaxing his first tour victory by sinking a 25-foot birdie putt on the last hole to beat out Charles, Player, Dale Douglass and Miller Barber.

“Winning at Richmond was a wonderful feeling, and it helped me when I was four strokes back at the Challenge,” he said. “But winning that one was the greatest day of my career. I know a lot of these guys think I’m pulling their leg when I tell them how fortunate I am to be playing with people like Chi Chi Rodriguez, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player. But they don’t know what I went through to get there.”

The victory at Richmond gave Mowry an exemption from the Monday qualifying round for a year and, when he overcame Palmer’s four-shot lead two weeks later, he jumped up among the top money winners. Anyway you looked at it, he was a success.

“We (his wife Karen) went from driving cars to the tournaments to being met in a limousine at the airport,” he said. “How can you beat that?”