Nick Price
HOBE SOUND, FLA. - The greens at the McArthur Golf Club here are super-fast, Augusta National fast. They're so fast that three-time major championship winner and former world No. 1 Nick Price said he'll be coming up short on every putt when he defends his Toshiba Classic title at the Toshiba Classic in Newport Beach, Calif., which starts Friday. They're so fast that U.S. Senior Open champion Olin Browne was barely touching the ball on the practice green before a game last week. They're so quick that David Hearn, the leading Canadian on the PGA Tour, said they're faster than many PGA Tour courses.
And then there was me, listening to all this golf talk live and hitting a few putts myself – past the hole – as I prepared to join the three tour golfers for a round.
"Should we take on the Canadians?" Price, probably the friendliest golfer in the game, asked Browne. Browne, who had met Hearn before, thought that was a good idea. Price and Hearn had never met each other. I figured they'd enjoy each other's company, and had arranged the game. Game on: The Canadians against the major champions.
Price asked me what my handicap was. I almost didn't want to tell him, since it has expanded, like the universe, since I helped him write his book The Swing: Mastering the Principles of the Game, 15 years ago. You'd think I'd have learned something. But I've had way too much instruction and, hey, I'm susceptible. I've regressed from a three-handicap back in those halcyon days to my current, gulp, 12. It is what it is, as tour pros often say when asked about, oh, course conditioning, or slow play during tournaments.
"We'll give you 14 shots," Price said. We'd play a better-ball match. Off we went. The tour pros played McArthur, which Price co-designed with Tom Fazio, at 7,205 yards. I played it at about 6,400 combining two sets of tees. I know my limitations. I'm playing it forward these days. Why should I hit hybrids or fairway woods into every par-four? It is what it is.
Hearn had picked me up, and en route he told me he was looking forward to the round because of the company, the course, which he'd never played, and the fact that it was windy. It had been windy all week.
"It's been good for me," Hearn, who is from Brantford, Ont., and has a home in Delray Beach, Fla., said on the range before we started. "I need the practice in high winds. I've had trouble with my driver. I'm trying to get the weight sorted out."
Hearn was referring to the gram weight of the shaft in his driver, and the fact that he wanted each of his clubs to kick the same, that is, to flex at the same point before impact. Tour pros are understandably fastidious about their equipment.
The 10th hole, where we started, is a par-five. Hearn had a kick-in birdie after hitting his approach close. Price holed a 20-footer to halve the hole, and then holed a greenside bunker shot at the 11th to win the hole. Hearn hit his approach up and down the flagstick at the 12th, and just got his ball rolling from 20 feet short of the hole. It fell in drunk on the last roll.
"I didn't think I'd gotten it there," Hearn laughed. Price said, "They should ban those things," referring to belly putters. Price also uses one. Browne, a member at the adjacent Medalist Club whose U.S. Senior Open win last year was a tremendous victory and a big confidence-booster, uses a conventional-length putter.
"I'll just keep making putts with it and when they ban it, I'll find something else," Hearn said.
On we went. I stood with Price on the 13th green while Hearn faced a nasty little pitch from just over. Price told me the grain switches halfway to the hole, and was against Hearn there. As if on cue, Hearn's pitch grabbed into the grain and came up short. Hearn had seen the grain change, but couldn't make himself hit the pitch harder.
Meanwhile, I was happy with the way I was playing, thinking only of what Marlene Streit always advises me: "Smoothness, rhythm, and balance." Life was good. And as much as I've watched tour players, I still was impressed with how they compress the golf ball. Price, Browne and Hearn hit penetrating shots. Wind? No problem.
Hearn hit a 6-iron into the par-five, 542-yard 15th hole, from 190 yards. The ball floated up there, 12 feet from the hole.
"That's a beautiful swing," Price said. Browne's second had finished 10 feet from the hole. Hearn made his eagle putt, and then Browne rolled his eagle putt on top to halve the hole.
On the 18th, our ninth hole, Hearn's drive had drifted a bit left. That ball flight had been bothering him in tournaments – that gram weight and shaft issue. The drift was only five or 10 yards. But margins of error are small on tour. His ball finished just outside a fairway bunker. He stood in the bunker to hit the 160-yard shot, and choked way down on a 5-iron.
The ball started well right of the green, and swivelled left because of its lie above his feet. What a shot. He had 10 feet for birdie.
"That was a thing of beauty," Price said.
"Just don't ask me to do it again," Hearn replied. He made the birdie putt. Some birdie.
We were 1-up. As we made our way into the back nine, I told Price how much I enjoyed the course.
"I promise you, I never get tired of playing here," he said. "I came out last night and played four balls by myself."
Tour players are like the rest of us. It's a game to them as well as a business.
The match was even when we reached the sixth tee, our 15th hole. We all drove well. I hit a weak shot into scrub right of the green, and could only gouge the ball forward into a deep greenside bunker. Price had hit a dart of a 7-iron that the wind didn't touch. His ball finished 12 feet behind the hole. Hearn was 30 feet away, as was Browne. I got a shot on the hole.
I couldn't see the green from the bunker. I splashed the ball out, and as it hit the green and rolled, Browne said, "That could be in." It did go in. Four, net three.
"I'd better make this or we're in trouble," Price said of his birdie putt. But he missed. Major champions: 1-down.
On the next hole, I hit a fat 6-iron. Price laughed. "You're taking so many notes, I'm surprised you can concentrate at all," he said.
We won the next hole and were 2-up with two to play. The hole was halved in pars. Hearn and I were the winners, 2&1. We shook hands on the green, played the last hole, and went in for lunch.
I felt fortunate to be in such company, and to watch fine golf with sparkling golf talk for hours. In what other sport could a writer have the kind of day I'd just had?
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Lorne Rubenstein has written a golf column for The Globe and Mail since 1980. He has played golf since the early 1960s and was the Royal Canadian Golf Association's first curator of its museum and library at the Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville, Ontario and the first editor of Score, Canada's Golf Magazine, where he continues to write a column and features. He has won four first-place awards from the Golf Writers Association of America, one National Magazine Award in Canada, and he won the award for the best feature in 2009 from the Golf Journalists Association of Canada. Lorne has written 12 books, including Mike Weir: The Road to the Masters (2003); A Disorderly Compendium of Golf, with Jeff Neuman (2006); This Round's on Me (2009); and the latest Moe & Me: Encounters with Moe Norman, Golf's Mysterious Genius (2012). He is a member of the Ontario Golf Hall of Fame and the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame. Lorne can be reached at rube@sympatico.ca . You can now follow him on Twitter @lornerubenstein