Best wishes for the 2007 season

By Gary Larrabee

As we all await the most important event in the golf world in 2007 – the birth of Tiger Woods’ first child – allow me to offer a few of my wishes for the upcoming season:

Gary Larrabee

• That Turner Hill and The Renaissance Club continue, as their developers, Ted Raymond and Paul Quinn, respectively, envisioned them, as two of the premier clubs – and championship venues – in Greater Boston. For all the blood, sweat, money and tears these two men have poured into their projects to enhance the stature of the North Shore golf community, they deserve happy endings to their sagas.
  
  
• That Beverly native Ron Kirby, inducted into the Beverly High Athletic Hall of Fame March 31, is properly recognized by his course architect brethren for his distinguished career, capped to date with his breathtaking design of Old Head Golf Links in Ireland.
  
  
• That Mary LoBello, a North Shore fixture for the last eight years, first as corporate sales manager for the 2001 U.S. Senior Open at Salem, then director of membership sales at Turner Hill, enjoys nothing but success in her new assignment at the exclusive Carnegie Abbey Club in Portsmouth, R.I.
  
  
• That Patty Knaggs, former Bass Rocks course superintendent recently profiled in Sports Illustrated’s “Golf Plus,” is as successful in the real estate business as she was in the turf field.
  
  
• That the pride of Cape Ann, Pat Bates, former Mass. Open champ and PGA Tourist, can make his way back to the Big Show one more time as he continues his playing comeback after a series of career-threatening injuries.
  
  
• That Larry Butler’s proposal for restoring Beverly Golf & Tennis Club to its former glory, as presented in The Salem News last December 14, will be given serious consideration and positively acted upon by Mayor Bill Scanlon and the Golf & Tennis Commission.
  
  
• That George Sargent’s ambitious renovation of the Kattar family’s Merrimack Golf Club in Methuen will be as spectacular as the dream they first imagined a decade ago.
  
  
• That Lynnfield-born Ross Coon’s extended teaching career will last for years to come, in contrast to his far-too-short acceptance speech during his induction into the New England PGA Hall of Fame last fall.
  
  
• That the Myopia membership will extend an invitation to the United States Golf Association to conduct one of its national championships on its fabled links layout in Hamilton, no strings attached. It would truly be one of the proudest moments in Myopia history; a history that began pre-1900. This is a recording. Next year will mark the 100th anniversary of the fourth and final U.S. Open – and last USGA championship –conducted on one of America’s most endearing courses.
  
  
• That the USGA and its executive director, David Fay (St. John’s Prep, Class of ’68), get with the program and eliminate the 18-hole playoff at the U.S. Open and revert to a three-hole sudden-death cumulative-score playoff. If it’s good enough for the British Open, it should be good enough for the U.S. Open. Tiger and Phil would not disagree.
  
  
• That, speaking of Tiger and Phil, they meet in at least one playoff this year among the four majors, and then again in a playoff showdown at the Deutsche Bank Championship, now part of the FedEx Playoffs, in Norton over Labor Day weekend.
  
  
• Lastly, that all your golf experiences in 2007 are pleasurable as a player or spectator. See you at Kernwood for the Mass Open in June!