Life Off Riviera : But for Club Pros, This Was Their Chance to Get There

What was the first hint that they weren’t at Riviera Country Club? Well, the trunks of their cars parked on a dirt lot served as the locker room.

There were no caddies, no gallery, no clubhouse attendants, and for that matter, no clubhouse at Glendora Country Club, where 57 Southern California PGA club professionals carried their own bags Monday as they set off in search of a dream weekend--a playing spot in the Nissan Open at Riviera later this month. Two places were available.

“I think most guys here would pay to play the LA Open at Riviera,” said Greg Frederick of Oakmont Country Club. “The members would really get behind you.”

That’s true, said Rick Rielly of Wilshire Country Club.

“Yeah, they see you choking like a dog on that first tee,” he said.

Truth is, it’s a long way from Glendora to that elevated No. 1 tee at storied Riviera, the club where the PGA Tour pros get their shoes shined and their clubs cleaned, drive courtesy cars and show off million-dollar swings and golf games so hot they could melt graphite.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with Randy Peterson’s swing either, except when he’s practicing it at home in front of his bedroom mirror.

“I have to use the short irons,” said Peterson, the pro at Alondra Golf Club in Lawndale. “Otherwise I’ll hit the ceiling. I’ve also been known to take divots out of the carpet. That doesn’t go over too good with my wife.”

Like many other pro tournaments, the Nissan Open awards a few spots to amateur or club pro qualifiers. That’s why Rielly was out there in the dampness and the early morning chill, playing his second round of golf since having been hospitalized for viral encephalitis.

“I shot a bundle,” he said, which translates to an 88, no matter how you pack it.

But Rielly wasn’t playing for the money, because no one got paid Monday. He wasn’t doing it for the fame, because almost no one was watching.

“It’s just fun to compete,” he said.

Now that’s an odd notion in professional sports these days, isn’t it? So there they were, in groups of three, in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, taking a hike around the golf course.

Some got around quicker than others. For instance, James Razzeto of Westchester Golf Club shot 77 and felt all right about it.

“Hey, I got a pair of 7s, I’m ready for Vegas!” he said.

Anyway, the jobs of club pro and the tour player don’t exactly go together like, say, John Daly and chocolate chip muffins. The normal duties of the club pro are fairly routine--teaching members, collecting greens fees, renting carts and riding herd on that reclaimed-water project.

Some do not remain club pros. Loren Roberts once was the assistant pro at Morro Bay, where he said he sold a lot of pimiento cheese sandwiches and hot dogs. Roberts has made nearly $4 million on the PGA Tour. Tom Lehman, who used to be the pro at Wood Ranch, is another millionaire professional, and he nearly won the Masters in 1994.

Peterson, 36, doesn’t want to be anywhere but on the driving range and in the pro shop. Like Roberts, he has made a lot of sandwiches, but specializes in peanut butter and jelly.

Peterson has taught such players as Mark Pfeil, Jeff Hart and former USC All-American Jill McGill. He gets $35 a half-hour for a private lesson, which he admits is not quite the same fee charged by world famous swing guru David Leadbetter.

“He may have a zero on the end of his,” Peterson said.

Two weeks ago, Peterson was one of two who qualified out of a field of 80 to play in last week’s Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines. Peterson missed the cut, shooting 74-72, but got in a practice round with Mark O’Meara and Paul Goydos, who went to Long Beach State as he did. O’Meara even gave him a driver.

“I’m happy with my life,” Peterson said. “Besides, my wife, Stacey, is 8 1/2 months pregnant. If you’re not a star, the touring pro life is a real grind.

“I’m comfortable where I am. It’s sure a different atmosphere playing with the pros. I mean, you walk into a locker room and you bump into Phil Mickelson or Fred Couples. It’s hard to be comfortable in a situation like that.”

Peterson looked very uncomfortable on No. 9, his finishing hole, when he found a greenside bunker. But he saved par to finish with a three-under-par 69. Since he was in the first group of the day, Peterson waited an hour and a half to see if his score would be good enough.

It was. But while he was waiting, he followed one of his rules.

“Can’t look at the scoreboard,” Peterson said. “It’s OK if someone tells me, I just can’t look. Bad luck.”

But his luck--and his score--held up.

Brad Sherfy is going to be in that Riviera locker room too. Sherfy, the pro at Mulligan Golf Center and the coach at UCLA, matched Peterson’s 69 to claim the other place in the $1.2-million event that begins Feb. 22.

Sherfy says he has no ambition to play on the tour.

“As a matter of fact, if I won a tournament, I still wouldn’t want to play,” he said. “I’d just take the money and spend it on my house.”

“And build a dog run and a swing set,” Jenny Sherfy told her husband as he sat on a lawn chair outside the temporary pro shop they’re using while Glendora remodels its clubhouse.

So that’s the club pro’s life: dog runs, swing sets, teaching, making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, carrying your own bag.

“I wouldn’t trade it for anything,” Peterson said.