On the tee sheets for the United States Senior Open, he is listed as Richard Parker Jr., Lebanon, N.H., but around Dartmouth College, he is just �Coach� or �Rich.� That is also how he is mostly known by the listeners of his Saturday morning radio show on WTSL-AM (1400), and by the folks who see him behind the counter at the nine-hole Carter Golf Club in Lebanon, where he is both the golf director and general manager.
When play gets under way Thursday in the first round of the Senior Open � the first United States Golf Association championship to be conducted at the Sahalee Country Club in Sammamish, Wash. � Parker will be just plain Rich to his playing partners. He said he would be content being anonymous compared with the threesome of Jay Haas, Nick Price and Hale Irwin, which tees off at 12:50 p.m., two groups after his 12:30 tee time.
After all, it has been 20 years since Parker teed up in the 1990 United States Open, the first and only U.S.G.A. championship he had played until this week.
�I don�t feel like I�m out here playing in the U.S. Open like I did last time,� he said. �I feel like I�m just out here playing in a golf tournament. I couldn�t care less who�s out here. I�m playing with guys I don�t know. They�re like kind of nobodies like I am, so it�ll be fun, you know.�
That Parker was able to shoot a round of 65 in qualifying to earn a spot in the field is one of the many charms of an Open championship. It is a window into how small the golf world is and how minute the differences are between players at the highest levels of a game, with few degrees of separation between a 50-year-old college golf coach and Irwin, a three-time United States Open champion.
Even so, Parker is plotting no competitive comeback, and he labors under no misapprehensions about his game. �When I�m out here, I feel like I belong here,� he �said in a phone interview. �When I�m at home, I feel like I belong at home. The difference is, when I�m at home, I have three kids and a wife, so I know I belong at home.�
Back when he was trying to play golf for a living, Parker�s United States Open experience was at Medinah Country Club, where Irwin won the last of his three Opens. At the time, he was playing on the Hogan Tour (now the Nationwide Tour), teeing it up each week against eventual PGA Tour winners like Tom Lehman and Olin Browne, with whom he played a practice round this week.
After missing the cut at the 1990 Open, and after one final run at the touring pro life in 1994, Parker settled down in Lebanon. He kept his game sharp, winning PGA player of the year honors in Vermont (1997) and New Hampshire (1999) and building the program at Dartmouth into a winner since taking it over in 2006.
But like all athletes who once competed against the best, Parker never lost the desire to test his game again. This time, though, he prepared differently. He was often accompanied at evening practice sessions by his daughters � Virginia, 15, a member of the Lebanon High School golf team, and Anna, 12 � and his son Trey, 9, a Little League player who shagged practice shots with a baseball glove.
And now that he will be breaking out his game on the big stage, he wants to enjoy the experience more than he did in 1990, when he wore himself out before the event began. His attitude is relaxed. Browne said in a text message that his old friend was still �Jack Benny in a crew cut.�
�I know there�s a ton of people in New England who are following this, and this whole thing is awesome,� Parker said. �If I play good, awesome. If I don�t, hey, I�m not trying to go to the moon or something. This is golf. It won�t be the last time I play.�
No comments:
Post a Comment