Weathering Heights

Ray Carrasco was trying his best to deal with the freezing rain blowing in off the English Channel in gale-force gusts, the huge pools of standing water on the fairways and the groundskeepers frantically squeegeeing the greens.

But having his caddie walking around smoking a cigarette directly in his line as he prepared to putt was a bit much.

Sure, qualifying schools are supposed to be tough, but last month’s tournament in Hardelot, France--with 10 spots on the PGA’s European Senior Tour at stake--bordered on the surreal.

“When I got there, it was obvious the weather was going to be a factor, so I asked if they had caddies,” said Carrasco, a 51-year-old teaching pro at Northwood Golf Center in Irvine. “They said, ‘No, but we’ll get you one.’ So they went to an employment agency and got a guy.”

Carrasco, who speaks some French, asked his new charge his name. Jean-Marie. Had he ever played golf? No. Did he watch golf on TV? No.

“I said, ‘OK, just do what I do and try to keep the clubs dry.’ ”

On the first green, Carrasco picked up his muddy ball, tossed it to his caddy and said in French, “Wash the ball, Jean-Marie.” Jean-Marie failed to catch the ball, but he picked it up and tossed it back, smiling. “I guess he thought it was part of the game,” Carrasco says, laughing.

Alan Tapie’s caddie had even less local knowledge, but at least Tapie knew him. What he didn’t know, however, was that Bill Crossley--a 60-year-old student of Tapie’s at Saddleback Golf Driving Range in Mission Viejo, who had volunteered for the job and paid his own way to Europe--had undergone hernia surgery only a month earlier.

“Luckily, they had pull carts,” Tapie said, “but it was still a tough job. The last day, you couldn’t keep anything dry. We had three towels and three different gloves and they were all completely soaked.

“Bill just kept looking around and saying, ‘This is unbelievable, this is unbelievable,’ over and over.”

Hazards of Water

The weather--cold, rainy and windy all week--turned really foul on the final day of the four-day competition, which consisted of three rounds at Hardelot’s par-73 Pines course and one at the par-59 (three holes were completely underwater and unplayable) Dunes course. It rained incessantly throughout the day and the wind gusted to more than 40 mph.

Carrasco was six-over after three rounds and Tapie was nine-over after a disastrous 79 on the third day. Still, both golfers were among the top 15 of the 177 who were vying for the 10 spots, which says something about the conditions earlier in the week.

As they warmed up on the range in a downpour before the final round, Tapie, who was tied for 14th, had pretty much given up hope of getting a chance to improve his position and earn his card.

“We kept saying, ‘No way we’re going to play,’ ” he said. “If it had been in the U.S., it would’ve been called off. But we played. And once every hole or so, I’d take off the knit cap I was wearing and wring it out.”

Carrasco: “Somebody told me it rained eight inches that day. I know that’s a lot of rain, but I believe it. It never let up.”

Both sloshed their way to a 76. Carrasco’s 74-64-73-76--287 was good enough for third place. Tapie (75-60-79-76--290) tied for eighth.

Next stop: Istanbul, for the European Senior Tour opener in May.

“I’d never even considered it until Ray and I had dinner one night a couple of months ago and he told me he was going over and giving it a shot,” Tapie said. “I don’t turn 50 until March 24 and wasn’t eligible for this year’s [PGA] Senior Tour qualifying, so I thought, ‘Why not?’ ”

So now he’s looking to book reservations for the Orient Express.

They’ve yet to receive a schedule for 1999, but last year’s European Senior Tour included stops in Spain, Ireland, England, Sweden, Switzerland, Holland and Sardinia. There will be about $4.6 million in prize money up for grabs.

“The leading money-winner last year won about $200,000,” Tapie said. “It’s a little less than Nike [Tour] money. It should be a great experience, though. I know my wife [Marlene] and kids [Jason, 21, Brooke, 17, Lindsey, 15, and Melissa, 7] are looking forward to it.”

On the Same Line

In golf, often what goes around really does come around.

A round begins and ends at the clubhouse. And the golfer’s goal is to have the club head go around behind his head and come back to the exact same spot where the swing began.

For Carrasco and Tapie, the symmetry of the game seems to have gone beyond the 18-hole journey through fairway, rough, sand and green. Consider their parallel universes.

Carrasco grew up the eldest of 15 siblings in Garden Grove playing with battered thrift-store clubs on a fantasy course he designed on a nearby schoolyard with sunken soup-can holes. He was an All-Southern Section selection as a junior and senior at Garden Grove High, led Santa Ana College to state and regional titles in 1965 and later played two years at San Diego State.

Tapie was a football player and pitcher at Downey Warren High who played on the golf team when the baseball team didn’t have a game. He won the South Coast Conference individual golf title in 1969 as a sophomore at Cerritos College and earned a scholarship to USC where he was Pac-8 Conference champion in 1970.

Nearly a quarter-century before they trudged the fairways of a soggy course in the south of France, both were among the few who survived the wilting pressure of the PGA qualifying school to earn tour cards in 1974. (Fuzzy Zoeller was the medalist).

Carrasco lost his card after only one year, but played on the Canadian, South American and Asian tours. He also played in the 1981 and ’83 U.S. Opens and the 1985 British Open before settling down as a teaching pro in Irvine so he could be home to help his wife, Suzanne, raise their son, Ryan, and daughter, Ali.

Tapie played on the PGA Tour for eight years, had 22 top-10 finishes, was among the top 25 in five majors and earned more than $500,000. In 1981, he led the tour in putts per round with a 28.70 average. He didn’t lose his card, but quit in 1985 to spend more time with 4-year-old Jason.

And next spring, it all comes full circle: Ryan Carrasco, a 22-year-old senior at Princeton, will caddy for his father in Europe and Jason Tapie, 21, will be lugging his dad’s bag.

Carrasco hasn’t forgotten what it felt like when he lost his PGA card. “It’s crushing,” he said. “Your identity is wrapped up in how you play.” After Tapie left the tour, he said he still wanted to play against some of the best golfers in the world, he just “didn’t want to depend on it for a living.”

For one year at least, they can have it all.