Prime pro positions
for Powers, Baldassari

By Gary Larrabee

Gary Larrabee

Shanking and duck-hooking around the vast North Shore golf scene as the first pure playing month, June, approaches, thank goodness! I start with the realization, parochialism aside, that we don’t get to keep all of our best golf people at home. Two cases in point: Beverly’s Mike Powers and Lynnfield’s Bob Baldassari, two talented golf professionals who, after departing our beloved region, have succeeded impressively and made us proud elsewhere.

Baldassari is in his second season at the PGA of America’s premier resort and teaching facility, PGA Village, in Port St. Lucie, Fla., where, as general manager, he supervises a staff of close to 300 at the 54-hole golf operation and the PGA Center for Learning and Performance. Previously, he was the head pro at River Run Golf Club in the golf-crazy Ocean City, Md., area and Cannon Ridge GC in Fredericksburg, Va., which is owned by former PGA TOUR commissioner Deane Beman.

Baldassari was the first recipient of the PGA of America’s President’s Award for extraordinary efforts in player development that support the Play Golf American program. Bob has been a prominent supporter of Special Olympics, amputee golf programs and the charity golf initiative he established at River Run that is now being held as well in Fredericksburg and PGA Village. Speculation has surfaced within the PGA of America that he might become that organization’s president some day.

“I never thought I’d leave Boston and head south with my career,” says Baldassari, “but opportunities sent me in that direction and I’ve been fortunate every step of the way; I’m a Boston sports fan forever. It’s always been about providing a quality product to your golfers and treating people the right way. We don’t do heart surgery, but we can have an effect on people’s hearts with what we do as PGA professionals.”

Baldassari is a classic chip off the old man’s block. His namesake dad, after a quarter century as head pro at Hillview in North Reading, continues to teach six days a week at Paradise Golf in Middleton.

Powers, a former Beverly High standout player and Kernwood CC assistant pro, is in his fourth year as the head professional at Spring Valley CC in Sharon, a top private club south of Boston with a first-rate championship course. “(Kernwood head pro) Frank Dully’s recommendation was instrumental in my getting this job,” says Powers, who also served as an assistant at Wollaston, in Miami, Orlando and Palm Springs and spent four years teaching the game at the Wayland Golf Academy.

“I’ve learned from top club pros like Frank and (Wollaston’s) Steve Mann,” said Powers. “They taught me that it’s all about service to your members and their guests, individual attention, taking care of their needs. I also learned about the game as a caddy at Essex. You keep learning about the game and people every day in the job.”

Powers has been part of a new era at Spring Valley, where former Ferncroft pro Steve Caldwell served as head man for 13 years before returning to his native Mississippi, where he works as a club general manager. In the last three years the membership has rebuilt all 18 greens and greenside bunkers, installed a new irrigation system and rebuilt the tees. “It’s been an exciting time down here,” Powers says. “I’m glad to be a part of it.”

A few observations:

• Two must reads – “Jenkins at the Majors” (Doubleday), based on Dan Jenkins’s sixty years covering the four majors, filled with laughs, insight and grand memories (too bad he missed the historic ’63 and ’88 U.S. Opens at The Country Club), and Jenkins’s latest ribald golf novel, “Franchise Babe.”

• Golf journalism lost a special man with the death in March of Danvers native and former Boston Globe sports editor Ernie Roberts.

• None of our top layouts made the cut in Golf Digest’s bi-annual ratings of America’s 100 greatest courses (the “tradition” criteria has been eliminated), but four made the top 15 in the Massachusetts rankings. Congrats to third-year superintendent Eric Richardson, whose Essex CC layout jumped from 16th to 6th. Myopia dropped from 6th to 8th, Salem from 8th to 9th, Turner Hill from 12th to 17th, yet all remain enviable positions. GolfWeek’s classic American course rankings placed Myopia 31st, Salem 43rd, Essex 61st. It’s all subjective, and many slots in the “Greatest 100” are now occupied by 2000-era courses built with flash and tons of money. But I’ll be thrilled if I can play my final golf round at any of those local jewels, or maybe Kernwood, Tedesco, Ipswich, Ferncroft, Vesper, Winchester or Renaissance, great tests all.

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 40 years. He has written centennial histories for Salem, Winchester and Wenham Country Clubs. Catch his golf segment every Saturday morning on the North Shore Sports Desk (104.9 FM) from 8 to 9 a.m.