Average Joe Meets Pro: What happens when a golf pro plays your local goat track

I saw a link today from OOBGolf’s website to a Washington Post article. The WP writer had invited Steve Marino, PGA Tour professional, out to East Potomac golf course for a round. The supposition was that Marino would certainly shoot in the low 60s, possibly descending into the 50s. What happened was identical to what I saw take place in 1981.

At Merion Golf Club that year, David Graham played a great round on Sunday to clip George Burns for the USGA Open title. Tied for 11th was a North Carolina native by way of Buffalo, the man with enormous hands and the swing that makes Furyk’s look conventional, Jim Thorpe. Thorpe had tossed a Thursday 66 to lead the Open, had not disappeared, and had begun to play the type of golf that a pro plays when she/he believes in the self.

That Summer, Thorpe came out to my home course, Audubon Golf Course or, as we liked to call it, The National (or The Bon, or &#*$(#&). Thorpe was to play a round of golf with the pro that day, sort of a goodwill tour of area courses. We all stuck around to see the giant man sting that ball. What he did was shoot the same type of ugly score that Marino produced at East Potomac, nearly to the number (Thorpe had -3 for 67 to Marino’s 68). He missed putts that we would have made, because we knew the greens, their lumps and their tendencies, and he did not. He bombed the ball prodigious distances, going to lengths that I still fail to reach with the technology of today. It was a lesson that not all golf courses are equally created, and that even the greatest can be humbled. Mind you, I’d take that 67 every day of the week plus Sunday.