Golfer Scratches Surface of Moral Outrage

Standard equipment for the genteel pastime of golf: Woods. Irons. Tees. Balls. Spikes. Sunscreen. Video camera. Restraining order.

A Camarillo retiree named David “Doc” O’Connor never left home without them.

Doc is not a doctor. He’s a retired Lexus salesman with a greater interest than he’d like in the criminal justice system, as it applies to a fellow golfer deliberately scratching the gleaming paint of his wife’s new car.

On the surface, this might seem like a trivial matter. Below the surface it seems pretty trivial, too.

But when the car is a birthday gift to your wife, and when it’s been keyed five times in eight months, and when you think the culprit is--of all people--another golfer, it doesn’t seem so small.

At 69, Doc O’Connor has been in better shape. He suffers from cancer of the lung and the prostate. But his illnesses didn’t keep him from getting steamed, or from laying a snare for the perpetrator. He set up a hidden camera and waited. Five months, as it turned out.

“Persistence wears down resistance every time,” O’Connor likes to say.

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Until his health troubles, O’Connor led a group of volunteers at the Camarillo Springs Golf Course.

Known as the Ambassadors, they wear green shirts and roam the links in golf carts, reminding foursomes to keep up the pace of play and generally helping out. In return, Ambassadors receive discounts on food and drink, as well as free rounds of golf.

It’s a comfortable post for roughly 30 volunteers, but O’Connor, an ex-Marine, knew that the job of a leader--whether on the battlefield or on the back nine--isn’t always pretty.

That was abundantly clear on a February morning in 1998. An Ambassador named Jerry Worthy, then 61, had run afoul of a course manager, and O’Connor was told to get rid of him, O’Connor said.

“I sat him down and explained the facts of life,” O’Connor said. He claims Worthy vowed revenge. “He was going to sue me and make my life miserable,” O’Connor contends in a court document.

Worthy declined recently to talk about the matter, saying what’s past is past.

And for eight months, so it had seemed to O’Connor.

But in October 1998, he found a large X scratched on the door of the maroon Toyota Camry he had parked in the golf course lot.

In November 1998, he found a scratch spanning the passenger-side front and rear doors.

In February 1999, there was a big scratch across the trunk.

“The first time I thought it was just a nut,” O’Connor said. “The second time, it was, ‘Gee, I don’t know. . .’ The third time, I realized that someone was after me.”

In truth, nobody knows for sure who was keying the O’Connors’ car at that point. Police reports were filed, but these are not the the kind of incidents that trigger a massive police response.

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O’Connor was worried. From time to time, he drove a friend’s Buick instead of the family car. The stress was gnawing away at him. Somewhere out there was a key with his name on it.

That’s when he came up with a plan worthy of the recently departed Allen Funt.

To catch a perpetrator in the act of being himself, O’Connor mounted a video camera on the dash of a car parked directly across from the Camry. He’d play nine holes, then return to his car to freshen his batteries. Then he’d play the second nine.

“I knew I’d catch him,” O’Connor said. “I just knew it.”

One morning in April, he discovered an X on his left front door. The camera wasn’t running that day. But on June 10, the trap was sprung. Watching the tape of that morning’s activity is almost as exciting as watching golf. First, you see a head-on view of a parked Camry. Then you see a head-on view of a parked Camry. In the distance, cars speed by on the 101. More Camry.

Then a man in a golf shirt and a baseball cap is seen approaching the car, looking both ways, running a key or some other sharp, small object across the passenger side, and striding briskly away.

Armed with the tape, O’Connor secured a restraining order against Worthy in July. Later that month, Worthy was fined $200 and placed on probation after pleading guilty to one count of vandalism.

For O’Connor, the experience was an exasperating glimpse into the legal system.

“I must have been to the courthouse 15 times over this thing,” he said. “I think it’s sad you have to go through these monkey motions.”

This week a judge ordered Worthy to pay restitution in an amount to be determined. O’Connor figures he’s out $5,000, with the cost of paint jobs, rental cars, and video camera supplies. On top of that, he thinks he’ll be dinged when he returns the oft-repainted car to the dealer at the end of its lease next year.

He still loves golf, but more than ever I buy Mark Twain’s famous assessment of the game: “A good walk spoiled.”

However, not all the hazards are on the course.

Steve Chawkins can be reached at 653-7561 or by e-mail at steve.chawkins@latimes.com.