Pat Wheeler

With the heat doing a number on some of us just watching the 113th Texas State Amateur this week at Willow Brook Country Club, a day off to enjoy the modern convenience of air conditioning and watch some U.S. Open television seemed a good play. And with the rest and relaxation there was some time to look back on some memories of state amateurs past.

The young guns are closing in on the old man, 34-year-old bomber Bobby Massa and that means Sunday’s final round be exciting with a large contingent of guys in position to make a move and walk away with the giant H.L. Edwards trophy awarded each year to the best amateur in Texas. And the winner’s name is permanently etched on the side of the huge trophy, as well.

Now that I am deep into the back nine of life, hoping to play a few extra holes, it seems almost dreamlike to look back on participating in five state amateurs.

Missed cuts were the norm for most of those tournaments, but not the final one, in 1984, at Slick Rock of the Horseshoe Bay Resort in the Hill Country.

My first state am was in 1971, my senior year of high school at Tyler Lee. I entered and qualified for that state am with an 80, nine over par, at a Willow Brook course that was shorter and more forgiving than today’s modern version.

Tying for the last spot with JP Bryan, a young Tyler businessman at the time, we went into a sudden death playoff, what the late Ralph Morgan, pro at Willow Brook for some 45 years, called a “swatfest.”

That playoff was not pretty. The first hole in 1971 was a straightforward par 4 of about 375 yards downhill to a large and relatively flat green. The prototypical first hole to get the golfer off to a reasonable start. Except that I hit my patented hook into the left rough where I managed to hit a wedge from a downhill lie onto the green with a lengthy birdie putt. Bryan drove his ball well and hit his approach on the green inside of my ball.

I hit my putt some 2 or 3 feet past the hole and then Bryan putted from about 20 feet and missed. He decided to putt out and missed his short putt, making a bogey. Before I could putt, Bryan gentlemanly picked up my mark and conceded my putt, giving me the last spot. I was shocked because the putt was certainly no “gimme.”

In 1971, the state amateur was contested at Midland Country Club and shot 79-79 to miss the cut by a mile. But a harbinger of things to come, I managed to get my picture in the Midland paper the day the tournament started because the day before I was talking with Don Addington on the practice tee with a newspaper photographer ambled over. I was going to SMU and Addington, now a member of the Texas Golf Hall of Fame, was a former SMU golfer who played on the Mustangs’ national championship team in 1954, clipping North Texas and AJ Triggs by a single shot.

I hitched a ride out to West Texas that week with Warren Chancellor of Sulphur Springs. With his girlfriend in the front seat, Chancellor let me and friend Mark Triggs sit in the back for long haul to Midland. I missed the cut but they both made it so I had to just watch the final two days as Bruce Lietzke won. Triggs finished about 12th that year and Chancellor about the same. Later Chancellor became a golf professional and served well at Oak Hills in San Antonio and Lochinvar in Houston.

My next start in a state am was in 1974 at a raw and challenging Royal Oaks Country Club in Dallas. The rains came and that spelled trouble because the huge creek running through the property flooded and the cut came after only 18 holes. My first round 82 made it on the number. I remember fellow Tylerites Howie Alexander and Reagan Brown having good tournaments but not much else. Mark Witt of Irving won with Keith Fergus of Killeen the runner-up.

The 1980 state am at Brookhaven Country Club in Farmers Branch is totally forgettable except for shooting a 90 that was a huge dose of embarrassment. I deserved it for not being ready to play tournament golf that week. Embarrassment is a big part of golf even sometimes for the pros. Richard Ellis won that year and it was his first of two state am championships. He also won 10 years later at Stonebridge in McKinney.

There was a lot of turmoil in my life when I qualified in 1982 to play at a new and much praised Crown Colony Country Club in Lufkin. I had car trouble and had to bum a ride to Lufkin for the second round from my friend Billy Gammill, who caddied for me. Strangely, the first nine holes of the second round was perhaps the best ball striking I can ever remember, though I only shot a one-under 35. That was the worst score I could have shot because of so many good iron shots but I folded on the back and was home in Tyler for the weekend. That year, Scott Verplank won his first of three state amateurs with John Slaughter of Abilene the runner-up.

When Verplank won again in 1984 at the Slick Rock course of Horseshoe Bay in the Hill Country, Jeff Maggert was the runner-up. Those guys won their share on the tour later and I was around on the weekend, thank you very much. My life was in better shape and I made the 36-hole cut with rounds of 77 and 74. My friend Alan Gaylin was managing a restaurant in Austin and drove over to caddie for me the first three rounds.

The third day at Slick Rock, I played with Kyle Coody, son of Masters champion Charles Coody and now better known as the father to the Coody twins Pierceson and Parker, who just led the University of Texas to a national championship. I slumped to a 79 that was followed by an 81 the final day. I finished last among those who made the cut. My 311 total, 23 over par, was 31 strokes behind Verplank.

It was still a great week. Perhaps the best thing about my final state amateur at age 31 was getting to hear the great Harvey Penick give the after dinner talk on the eve of the tournament. I remember distinctly two pieces of advice he gave us: “Whoever said never up, never in, should have said never five feet past, never in.”

Penick believed in dying your putt into the hole. He mentioned practicing lag putting to lower your handicap. Then he addressed playing from around the green – “keep the ball as low as possible unless you have to hit over a bunker or you are into the wind and need to stop the ball quickly.”

It is wonderful to ponder the words of the father of Texas golf instruction as the Texas State Amateur concludes at Willow Brook Sunday in this the Centennial year of the East Texas club.

We are blessed with wonderful golf history in Texas and a new page of that book will be written Sunday at Willow Brook.

And with that, I will pause my R&R to go hit a bucket of balls and get ready to watch Sunday’s final round of the 2022 Texas State Amateur.