The U.S. Open Crushes a Teacher's Self-Censoring Impulse

One of the greatest obstacles to writing, to simply getting words on paper, or in this case, on screen, is that irritating little self-censor that tries to prevent us from telling stories that make us look like the morons we often are. 

I’ve overcome that dude.

But I haven’t overcome the self-censor of virtue and wholesomeness. That guy has done everything in his power to prevent me from writing the funniest stories.  You see, growing up in White Plains, I spent a lot of time with guys named Sullivan, Henderson, O’Gorman, Steinthal, McCormack. I don’t mean to stereotype people by ethnicity, but I think you can see where this is going.

As a result, even my notebooks are free of stories from the caddying days, from the 15-hour lunches we had from time to time before everyone got married.  But with the U.S. Open starting today, I’m taking a chance.

First story is a clean one. When you caddied in Westchester, you never had to pay for a ticket to a professional tournament. One June day in 1984, Marty Sullivan and I got lucky and scored tickets for a U.S. Open practice round at Winged Foot. It was probably Tuesday, and we were following whoever it was that everybody was following back then. We got as far out as the fourth green before we decided we couldn’t see a thing and we’d head back to the clubhouse.

It’s around 4 in the afternoon, and Fuzzy Zoeller is walking down the first hole with his caddie and his enormous orange PowerBilt bag.  We watch him drop a few balls in the fairway and hit them to different spots on the green, when all of a sudden he says to us, “You guys can’t see anything from behind those ropes; come on over here.”

So we’re walking the course with Fuzzy, watching him set up like he’s going to hit every driver off the toe, and then crushing it. Marty has the chutzpah to ask if he can swing one of his clubs, and his caddie, nice as can be, pulls the seven iron out of the bag. Honestly, I can’t remember whether or not he hit one of Fuzzy’s balls (I hope I don’t get in trouble for that), but I remember feeling this indescribable joy watching my pal Marty swinging Fuzzy Zoeller’s seven iron.

When Fuzzy won the Open that Sunday, Marty and I were as happy as could be.

Two years later, the Open is at Shinnecock, and we’re on the road at 4:30 a.m. to see the first group tee off at around 6:50. We’re watching Jim McGovern, who wouldn’t know us from a hole in the wall, but we know a guy from Bergen Catholic who knows a guy, so we feel like we have a connection. There’s nothing but dew on the course, footprints and ball trails in the fairway, and cart tracks leading to a beer shack. 

After a breakfast of champions, we nourished ourselves all day long, camping out at the bottom of the hill on the ninth hole, and watching balls that landed on the front of the green spin back and roll 60 yards down the hill back into the middle of the fairway.  We may have heckled some golfers. I don’t think Marty’s father was real happy to see us when we showed up in the NYNEX hospitality tent later that afternoon.

A few years later, when the Open was back at Shinnecock, we took a more, how shall we say, sober approach to the day. By that time, Marty had spent a summer in Hampton Bays and caddied at Shinnecock, where he won the caddie championship back in the days when clubs hosted such things. I had gotten to play the course by then, and it was so much more enjoyable to see the action on a course I’d played.

Unfortunately, I haven’t had the chance to get back to see a major championship at Winged Foot. I’m sure that the 38 I put up on the front nine of the West one Monday night in a ninesome of caddies, members and the assistant pro would qualify me to critique the action.

But you stop caddying, you stop getting those free tickets, and then there’s all the other stuff of life that gets in the way of watching golf (unless you’re Joe Collins or Joe Kilkelly, and you spend the day “volunteering” in such a way that ends up with one of you doing a backward roll from the green into the bunker after Davis Love III holes out to end Saturday’s action).

You do, however, get the chance one day to overcome your self-censor, and finally confess some of the impure acts of your youth.