There’s a spring in his step

By Gary Larrabee

Congratulations, fellow North Shore golfers. You made it through another hellacious winter of blizzards, sub-zero temperatures, A-Rod hysteria, bizarre Britney Spears behavior, the second weeklong Patriots Super Bowl celebration in three years and hefty heating bills. Now it’s time to reap your reward: the best golf season of your life. And I don’t mean strictly as a player. Have a great season reading, viewing and buying golf, too.

Here are a few of my 2004 wishes for those of you who make the North Shore golf scene such a special place:

• That Kernwood head professional Frank Dully breaks through and wins his first New England PGA Championship in August, after finishing second four times and leading after the first round in 2003.

• That The Golf Channel never goes off basic cable again.

• That you never have to put off your scheduled match because of rain.

• That you successfully convince your S.O., a golf widow/widower, that love is infinitely more passionate for couples who golf together.

• That you appreciate the remarkable story of teenage sensation Michelle Wie.

• That the Cape Ann’s favorite golfing son, Pat Bates, breaks through with his first PGA Tour win.

• That the Salem Country Club membership continues its generous policy of giving back to the game and invites the USGA to conduct another national championship on its marvelous layout in the not-too-distant future.

• That Myopia Hunt Club makes the same gesture. The last USGA event the Hamilton club hosted occurred in 1908. It’s certainly time for another.

• That two of the finest municipally owned golf facilities in New England, Beverly Golf & Tennis and Larry Gannon Memorial in Lynn, resolve their on-going “issues” and concentrate on providing the best golf experiences possible to their members and guests.

• That by the time you read this, Arnold Palmer will have completed his 50th and final Masters appearance in a blaze of glory that none of us will ever forget.

• That Woburn pro Paul Barkhouse has one more NEPGA Seniors Champion-ship victory in his golf bag.

• That all of your topped drives, shanked wedges and four-putt greens are past history.

• That Lynnfield-born Dana Quigley, at the ripe young age of 57, enjoys his finest year ever on the Champions Tour and wins at least one “major.”

• That you get to play Pebble Beach or Olde Head in Ireland, irrespective of the miles to travel and the steep greens fee to pay.

• That you read Dan Jenkins’ Dead Solid Perfect, the funniest golf novel ever written, and Beverly resident John Updike’s Golf Dreams.

• That you will forsake the golf buggy and use your trusty feet to traverse your favorite courses.

• That you will find more balls than you lose.

• That the golf season lasts well into November.

• That you win the big raffle prize at one of the expensive charity tournaments you play in – a golf holiday to Bermuda.

• That you record your first hole-in-one with plenty of witnesses, not when you are playing as a single some weekday at dusk.

• That Beverly native and Salem CC member Dick Harrison, formerly of The Mass Cup, makes a successful return to the corporate golf business.

• That someone of Bob Hope’s stature and dignity takes up the torch as the game’s No. 1 ambassador.

• That we all pause for a moment and remember one of the greatest achievements in the history of women’s golf – cancer-stricken Babe Zaharias’ 12-stroke victory in the United States Women’s Open 50 years ago at Salem CC.

• That you get a chance to spend at least one day at the 2004 U.S. Women’s Open at another gem of a Donald Ross-designed layout – The Orchards in Hadley. The two-hour drive each way will be well worth it.

• That you dream your greatest fantasy to conclusion on a summer night, in which you defeat Nicklaus, Woods, Hogan and Palmer in an 18-hole playoff for the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills.

• That you play more golf than you watch on television, even after the big head start the “watching” got the first three months of the year.

• That, every time you make it to the course, you appreciate the game for its most important gifts – exercise, fresh air, the sunshine and kinsmanship – and not worry about the abundance of double bogeys nor the dearth of birdies.