Time for Dully to deliver?

by Gary Larrabee

Back in the April/May 2006 issue of North Shore Golf, we reported on Kernwood Country Club Head Professional Frank Dully’s seven-stroke victory at the 7th Annual National Club Championship, presented by Club Car, at Kiawah Island, S.C.

Dully, a Connecticut native and former Holy Cross golf captain, blitzed the 39-professional field by seven strokes with his 73-72-68-66-280. The payoff was a modest $1,000. More important was the meaning of that late-winter performance as Dully looked ahead to the upcoming competitive season. His unbridled enthusiasm was striking.

“I’ve never felt better about my game heading into the year,” Dully said at the time. “I won’t be surprised if this is my best season ever as a professional.”

Strong words from any club professional whose primary job is to provide superb staff, service, instruction, merchandise and counsel to the 350 members of one of the top golf clubs in New England. The club professional’s plight requires him to use his time off, or his “free time,” to work on his game and to compete in a selected number of tournaments after he’s performed his club duties. But Dully doesn’t keep the competitive juices flowing because he has to; not when he has one of the top five club professional jobs in the New England PGA section. He continues to compete because it is part of his makeup as a man committed to the game of golf.

So I accepted the aforementioned words of the lean and muscular Dully cautiously. I’ve been the guy predicting greatness for him as a player ever since we began publishing NSG four years ago. I picked him to win the Massachusetts Open a couple times, ditto for the New England PGA, and in our July issue I noted that he was one of the favorites at the NEPGA at Turner Hill in Ipswich, which was played in August after this magazine went to press. At press time, he hadn’t won any of them. But based on what he’s accomplished in the past, I wouldn’t be surprised if he broke through in a big way between now and the end of the season. Maybe he did so at the NEPGA. If not, maybe at the New England Open at Lake Winnipesaukee Country Club in New Hampshire on Sept. 12.

Dully, who won the NEPGA Pro-Assistant Championship at Wachusett CC in early August with Steve Bramlett, took another major step forward when he passed the local U.S. Open qualifying test at Pinehills Country Club (after missing the last two years because of a splashed ball on 18) and played in the 36-hole sectional in New Jersey in early June. Frank didn’t qualify for the main event at Winged Foot, but comported himself well with a 145 aggregate.

Then in late July he was the medalist at the NEPGA section qualifier for the Deutsche Bank Championship with a 4-under 68 back at Pinehills. That put him in the 156-player field for the $5.5 million PGA Tour event over Labor Day weekend at TPC Boston in Norton. They call it the Deutsche Bank Championship, but it’s really the Tiger Woods Foundation Championship. Tiger plays and all charitable proceeds go to Tiger’s Foundation.

“It’s like a dream come true,” says Dully, who has one other PGA Tour event on his resume thanks to his participation in the CVS Charity Classic at Pleasant Valley back in 1997 when he missed the cut after shooting a 75-69. “As a kid growing up playing competitive golf, you always dream of playing in a Tour event. I’m nowhere close to where those guys on Tour are. They make a living at it. I’ll just be living the dream for a few days and hopefully right through the weekend if I can make the cut.”

With five runner-up finishes in the New England PGA, including in 1999, when the final round was played on his home course in North Salem, Dully might be considered an underachiever – the Colin Montgomerie of the NEPGA circuit. But those of us close to the situation know better. Dully is simply a terrific player long overdue to taste the spoils of victory. It won’t happen at the Deutsche Bank. But don’t be surprised if Dully makes the cut and gains a juicy fat check come Labor Day night.

If he doesn’t, I’ll still pick him to win the 2007 Massachusetts Open. The venue? Kernwood Country Club.

Gary Larrabee, the author of The Green and Gold Coast: The History of Golf on Boston’s North Shore, 1893-2001, has been covering the North Shore/Greater Boston golf scene for 35 years. He has written centennial histories for Salem, Winchester and Wenham Country Clubs. His most recent volume is The Best Care Possible: From Beverly Hospital to Northeast Health System, 1888-2005. Currently he is working on the 100-year history of St. John’s Prep, which will be published in September 2007.