The day started with pancakes and sausage. It ended with red, ripe tomato.
The morning chow came courtesy of Village Inn, my father and I up-and-at-em by 4 a.m., seated in stools at the counter by 5 a.m., catching the 6:30 a.m. shuttle to Southern Hills for the second round of the 1977 U.S. Open.
The hothouse tomato? That was me, a 13-year-old after a day at the Open. Sunscreen? For wimps. My father and I, we were tough. We were men. We were stupid.
But boy, were we happy, having witnessed Nicklaus, Palmer, Trevino, Player, Watson and all the other guys we watched on TV, from just a few feet away. Wow. Did I mention? Wow.
I was probably blushing as I told these stories in the following days, but people couldn’t tell.
We saw them all, deciding to camp out on the No. 5 green for almost the entire Friday. I had this fascination for the par-5, 614-yard hole, trying to determine which prodigious ball-strikers might reach the green in two.
Perhaps this doesn’t seem so fantastic today, but recall that this was a time when woods were made out of wood, not some space-age material. I only recall Tom Weiskopf accomplishing the feat, missing an eagle putt and settling for birdie.
I think we sat in a grandstand behind the green, but the memory is fuzzy here. These things scramble a bit after 30 years.
Last fall, I wrote about seeing the first “Rocky” film at the Southroads Cinema. A newsroom colleague said I was wrong and swore it must have been at the Village Cinema.
Then I swore at him. Don’t mess with my memories.
I saw more of the course at the 2001 U.S. Open, thanks to getting into one of those fancy chalet tents for the second round, allowing my wife and I to grab a bite and some chilled bottle water, go wandering the course for a couple hours, then come back for more Aquafina.
It was a sort of rinse-repeat cycle all day. I didn’t feel wimpy. I even wore sunscreen. So make that rinse-lather-repeat.
Hey, my wife had it out already, I thought, why come home looking like a radish again. Or more like a beet, with that dark, purplish bruising that I’m so famous for.
We are so fortunate to have Southern Hills in Tulsa, this sports nirvana that brings the golf world to our door every few years. Every time an announcement comes that another major championship is set for six or seven years in the future, what seems interminable goes by so swiftly.
Call me a second-rounder, because I’ll be back out there on Friday this week. I’ll be the guy in the Tulsa World blue-denim ballcap, a gift from my managing editor a decade ago following my day-long coverage of spring grassfires.
Rather than describe the shade of red in food terms, I’ll just say that Susan Ellerbach looked genuinely concerned for my health, handing me the hat with both a smile and a pained expression on her face.
I don’t tan. I only burn bright, like my memories of Southern Hills.
