Club Pro’s the Name, Hacking’s the Game

You can call them club pros, or you can call them “PGA professionals,” or you can call them by their collective working title this week in Redmond, Wash.: 25 Guys Who Won’t Win the PGA Championship.

For 51 weeks of the year, they walk their home clubs in Gaylord, Mich., or Waterloo, Iowa, trying not to pop too many aspirins while their high-maintenance clients--you can call them “hackers”--listen attentively to their sage advice before teeing off and sending fish in the nearby pond scurrying for cover.

Then, after being lucky--or unlucky--enough to finish in the top 25 at the national club pro championships, they get their week in the sun at the PGA Championship, which is not really a full week--more like three days of practice rounds and two days of bogeys and then a Saturday morning flight back to the Tower Tee Golf Center in Affton, Mo.

“It’s your one fling for the year,” says Brad Sherfy, club pro at the Mulligan Golf Center in Torrance who played in the PGA Championship in 1991, 1993 and 1994. “You get to be Walter Mitty for a week.”

It’s a good idea in theory--teaching pros and average Joes rubbing elbows with Nick Faldo and Corey Pavin in a major tournament. But the fun vanishes quickly, often before the end of Thursday’s first round.

“You walk in there and you’ve just shot a 138 [for 36 holes], a 140, a 136 to qualify,” Sherfy says. “You’re at the top of your game. You’ve qualified for a major. And then you go out and you’re 20 over [par] for two rounds.

“Most of the club pros don’t see this kind of setup on a day-to-day basis. It’s unbelievably difficult. They grow the rough high, they narrow the fairways, they have rock-hard greens. It’s just a tough, tough thing.”

In the last 20 years, there have been only three top-20 finishes by club pros at the PGA Championship--Lonnie Nielsen’s 11th place tie in 1986, Jay Overton’s 17th place tie in 1988 and Bob Boyd’s 19th place showing in 1990.

The best finish by a club pro at the PGA Championship? That would be Jimmy Wright’s fourth place in 1969, unless you are counting former tour veterans competing as club pros after retiring from the tour. (Tommy Bolt was a “club pro” when he placed third in 1971. So was Sam Snead when he tied for fourth in 1972 and ninth in 1973.)

Sherfy, who also coaches the men’s golf team at UCLA, never made the cut at a PGA Championship. Very few club pros do, maybe two or three each year.

As experiences of a lifetime go, there are better choices on the board if self-esteem and self-worth are considered important.

“I feel for these guys,” Sherfy says. “They shoot 80 and 85 and come back with their tails between their legs. I’d like to tell them, ‘Look, you shot 138 to get here. You beat 6,000 other guys to get here. Don’t let it beat you up.’ ”

Jay Lumpkin, who runs the teaching program at Morgan Run Resort and Club in Rancho Santa Fe, qualified for the 1988 PGA Championship, doing his two-rounds-and-out duty.

“I don’t know if it’s completely overwhelming,” Lumpkin says. “I would say it’s an uncomfortable experience. It’s totally different from what most of us see day to day. There’s so much going on, the course is so difficult. . . .

“Intimidating? Maybe. Uncomfortable? Maybe. Overwhelming? No. That’s why we work so hard on our games--to try to get into this situation where you’re uncomfortable.”

For the club pro, access to the PGA Championship is more restricted now. Through 1994, 40 club pros were invited to the PGA Championships. After 1994, the number was cut back to 25 because, as Lumpkin notes, “there were some rumblings that having the club pros in the tournament weakened the field a little bit. And there was some truth to that.

“I think having 25 is fair. We work hard on our games all year. We earn our way there.”

Mike Burke, this year’s top club-pro qualifier, is heading for his sixth PGA Championship, still looking to make his first cut. The head pro at Mountain Ridge Country Club in West Caldwell, N.J., Burke has a brother, Pat, who played on the PGA Tour and, therefore, often had an advantage when it came to lining up a foursome for a practice round. Three times he and Pat have played with John Daly and Fuzzy Zoeller.

“The rounds with Daly and Zoeller were a survival test,” Burke says. “They did nothing but bust your chops the whole time. Zoeller was all over me--’You should be selling shirts.’ ”

Another thing about those practice rounds: Too many club pros, champing at the bit and eager to soak up as much of the big-time flavor as possible, play too many of them. “The first year you go, you get in on a Sunday and play 36 holes on Monday, 27 on Tuesday and another 18 or 27 on Wednesday,” Sherfy says. “By the time you tee off on Thursday, you’re already worn out.”

Any other advice for first-timers? “First, I would try to play with some tour players,” Lumpkin suggests. “If you know one, write him a letter or call him. See if you can play a practice round with him. Maybe they have played the course and they can help you with pin placement. Also, it will help you get comfortable playing next to a player you might [idolize].

“After that, maybe go into your bathtub and start putting. And see if you can stop the ball before it gets to the drain.”

80th PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

When: Thursday-Sunday

Where: Sahalee Country Club, Redmond, Wash.

Yards: 6,906

Par: 35-35--70

TV: Thu.-Fri., TBS; Sat.-Sun., TBS, Channel 2