Sheff Keeps His Distance

Legend has it some hulking brute was bashing the dimples out of the golf ball in the Oakmont Country Club member/guest tournament in June. This ape was reaching the green of the 486-yard, par-five first hole using a crushing driver and a lofting six iron.

Legend, as is often the case, was wrong.

First, the player in question was Dave Sheff of La Canada, a guy with an average build and a disposition as gentle as a three-foot putt. Second, Sheff was teeing off with a three wood , not a driver .

“(The onlookers) kind of shook their heads and laughed,” recalled Sheff while nursing a soft drink in the Oakmont clubhouse grill.

Although Sheff’s choice of golf clubs might have raised some eyebrows at the tournament, it came as no surprise to many club members. Sheff, 40, the club’s former assistant pro and now a Ping club salesman, has built quite a reputation for belting the ball.

Last week, Sheff and friend Mike Haney, a Glendale fire captain, placed third in the Santa Barbara Classic. They won the tournament last year when Sheff birdied three of four holes in a playoff.

Even though Haney has known Sheff for about 15 years, he still marvels at his power. Once, while playing in the MacBeth Invitational at the Wilshire Country Club, Sheff was about 240 yards from the middle of the green. He turned to Haney for advice.

“He says, ‘Hey partner, what do you think? Four iron?’ ” said Haney, 38, an All-American at USC in 1973. “I’m thinking, ‘How the hell do you club a guy that hits a four iron that far?’ I said to him, ‘Don’t you think it’s a three?’ And he hits a four 20 feet away from the hole and is putting for eagle.”

Sheff’s long game is no tall tale. His drives are so powerful, some might think that he’s playing with helium-filled Titleists. His drives frequently sail more than 300 yards.

Friends call him “Wedgie,” a moniker he earned during his two-year stint on the pro tour in the early 1970’s. Sheff says he got the name for his lack of a short game--not, as some Oakmont players believe, because his second shot is usually with a pitching wedge.

“Probably the reason I had to get my amateur status back was because my wedge game wasn’t as good as it should have been,” Sheff said. “My wedge used to be the worst shot in my bag, but through the years I’ve gotten much better at it. Let’s say I’m a plus-two handicap hitting the ball. I feel like I’m still an eight handicap around the greens.”

Much of Sheff’s game was self-taught. He was raised in Reno and began playing in his early teens. He entered Arizona State in 1967 as a walk-on, but was given a full scholarship after he won a freshman tournament that included powerhouse golf schools such as Houston and Wake Forest. He was an honorable mention All-American as a senior and finished 10th in the 1971 NCAA championship. He also won the 1971 NCAA long-drive competition with a 342-yard wallop.

Sheff graduated and played on the pro tour as a “rabbit” for two years. A rabbit is a player who has to qualify for tournaments on a weekly basis. He quickly tired of living on a shoestring budget and saw little hope of reprieve.

“I think if you really want to give the tour a good shot, you have to play five years,” he said. “I hit the ball as well as anybody out there. I just wasn’t as good a putter and chipper, you know, bunker player and things like that. So I just didn’t think I had a good enough game to continue playing on the tour.”

Sure, he loves uncorking a screaming drive, but having a towering tee shot is not so appealing, Sheff says, when he loses a little touch.

“What keeps me up nights is when I try to fade the ball and it hooks,” he said. “That’s the shot that drives me crazy. Here you’re aiming left, you’ve got the club face open so you think it’s going to go to the right. So you take this big swing and it starts left and even goes further left. You’re usually about 60 yards off-line instead of right down the middle.”

The key to beating Sheff, according to Oakmont assistant Mark Spinelli, is catching him on a day when his shots are hooking.

“If you get him when he’s hitting the ball straight, breaking par is no problem,” Spinelli said. “But he would listen to 36-handicapper if he could cure that hook.”

As it stands, Sheff has quite a few 36-handicappers listening to him. He spends most of his time traveling to courses between Los Angeles and Fresno, convincing golfers of all abilities to purchase a set of clubs. He is so busy, in fact, he has surprisingly little time to play. That makes house calls to spectacular courses particularly tough.

“You call in Bel Air and Riviera and L. A. Country Club and you think, ‘Geez, it would be nice to put the briefcase away and play a few holes,’ ” he said.

But don’t pity Sheff. His deep tan and casual work clothes suggest he gets in enough golf to keep his swing fresh.

So fresh, he has to angle his drives on the Oakmont driving range so as not to hit the parking lot that is far out of the reach of most players’ drives. Still, he shys away from long-driving contests.

Said Sheff: “Now you show up to these things and you’re going up against guys that are 6-foot-8, 240 (pounds), with drivers that are five inches over length. So it’s really turned into a home run derby. If they catch one, there’s no chance to beat them.”

One select fraternity wears “350 Club” T-shirts and is composed of players who have unleashed at least a 350-yarder in competition. “You hear horror stories about drives anywhere between 350 and 420 yards with these guys,” he said.

Or so legend has it.