An Exclusive Club

Far more sacred than a hole-in-one, record-setting rounds, and the golfers who set them, occupy a special place in North Shore golf history

By Gary Larabee

Course records. Few of us are capable of setting them; for most, such a thought is a pipe dream. But all of us, from the duffer to the scratch player and even the professional, applaud them and marvel at the accomplishment they represent.

“Amazing,” we say. Course records are the closest thing we have to perfection in the game. No, not holes-in-one. Those are 65-percent luck and 35-percent more luck, even when Tiger makes one.

Course records are the result of a talented player passing the ultimate examination: taking on a layout’s nine or 18 holes and hanging up the lowest score in the property’s history when they finally put the clubs back in their trunk. It’s not a leisurely round with buddies. It’s the outcome of a round where everything must be in the hole, no exceptions.

It’s the result of the most complete round one can play: accurate driving, solid iron play, exceptional shot-making, superb putting; usually with nary a burp (or bogey) along the way, and yes, with a little luck mixed in too.

The roll call of course records on the North Shore runs the gamut from those that have stood the test of time for more than sixty years, to those that have been established as recently as last year.

The oldest, unmatched standard was set by the pride of Gloucester, former major leaguer John “Stuffy” McInnis, who after a 19-year playing career with six different teams, including the Red Sox, retired with a .307 average and became a regular at Candlewood in Ipswich. In the 1930s, McInnis shot a 5-under-par 27 on the sporty Route 133 layout. No one has matched that number since.

Long-time Kernwood head professional and 2006 New England PGA champion Frank Dully II has matched two course standards and set another in a spectacular run spanning the last three seasons. By far and away the most accomplished area course record by a female player belongs to Vesper’s Alison Walshe, the NCAA All-America from Arizona via Westford, who posted a sizzling 5-under 68 while waltzing to the Lowell Women’s City Championship in 2006 at Vesper.

Needless to say, there’s a story, or two, behind each and every one of these epic rounds. Here’s a look at just a few starting with a golfer who turned back the clock one summer day in Essex.

Jack Nies: Shooting 65 at the tender

age of 64

He had been saying for years among his golf buddies that his best playing days had long passed him by. But in 1994, at the age of 64, John “Jack” Nies, Jr., had one last fabulous round to play.

Competing in the Essex County Club club championship, Nies fashioned an extraordinary 5-under 65 en route to capturing medalist honors in the 36-hole, one-day qualifier. His afternoon round of 73 gave him a 138 aggregate. He lost in the finals to John Olson, but Nies knew he still had some game left.

In fact, later in 1994 he won the Massachusetts Senior at Cohasset and qualified for the USGA Senior at Prairie Dunes. Better yet, he won the Essex club title for the ninth and final time the following year.

“Guess I had a pretty good run at the time,” said Nies, who, like his dad, John Sr., has enjoyed a dazzling amateur career. “Hard to believe that stuff happened more than ten years ago.”

Nies, who recently turned 78, was in fact playing with Olson during the course record effort. “I don’t remember a whole lot, but I guess I knocked most every makeable putt in and probably made a few I didn’t expect to make,” he said. “I do remember making a birdie three on the last hole (the 408-yard par-4 18th). The drive is the scary shot there. I hit a good one, put my second 12 feet away and made it. My putting was still pretty good then, as was my back. Neither is very good now.

“On that day, though, it was a bit odd,” Nies continued. “The greens had been spiked recently and they weren’t very smooth. Maybe that’s the reason I putted so well. I’m using the same irons today (Tommy Armour 845s) I did that day.”

Today, Nies admits that he’s happy when he breaks 80, but still remembers when his goal was to break 70.

“I remember shooting 67 once at the old ‘Shoe,’ today’s Beverly Golf and Tennis Club, and I believe my dad shot several 68s and 69s,” Nies recalled. “I’ve always been a 70-to-72 scorer on my best day because I’ve never been a good putter, except on those rare days when I had a hot round and got lucky at the same time.”

Former head pro Dave Marad and current head pro Tom Waters also have shot 65 at Essex, but in non-competitive rounds.

Like father, like son

Their list of golfing accomplishments is as long as your arm, and somewhere on that lengthy measuring stick you will find a bevy of course records. Salem native Ed Whalley, 75, and his son, Ken, 46, have been fixtures on the North Shore and Massachusetts golf scene for more than a half century. In fact, the elder Whalley has been a professional since 1956, while Ken has been a top-notch amateur in these parts for more than thirty years.

Photo by Jim Vaiknoras Quite a pair: Father and son Ed and Ken Whalley hold the marks at Far Corner and Olde Salem Greens.

Ed, a former PGA Tour player and Maine Open champion, has set a slew of course records during his impressive career, but none is closer to his heart than the 6-under-par 29, he posted at Salem Municipal, now known as Olde Salem Greens, more than 55 years ago. It was a fitting place for Whalley to have such an eventful round, as the popular public track is where he learned to play the game as a kid. He shares the course standard with Harry Demeule, Joe Murphy and Norm St. Pierre.

“I think I was still in college at Merrimack when I scored the 29,” said Whalley, the former head pro at Charles River, Woodland, The Colonial and Meadow Brook golf courses. “I’d grown up on the course and had played it hundreds of times by then, so I certainly knew my way around the place.”

The one thing Whalley remembers most about that day was his approach shot to the par-4, 411-yard sixth hole. “I holed a 7-iron for a two,” he remembered. “That shot made the 29 possible. The rest of it is blurred.”

Yet the score has stood all these many years. Among the other course records he set was a 61 at Newton Commonwealth, which featured seven birdies in a row; a 64 at Franklin CC; a 61 at Belmont, and a 66 at Tedesco which he set while still an amateur. On that day Whalley remembers topping his drive on one, but recovering with birdies on holes two, four, six, eight, nine and 10. He also shot a 63 and a 64 while playing Hillview in North Reading in his college days.

“I played Salem Muni for a lot of years with my Salem buddies, guys like Eddie Collins, Jerry Buckley and Jerry Splaine,” said Whalley, whose other son, Ed Jr., is also an accomplished club professional at Applewood Golf Links in Windham, N.H. “We were all Salem CC caddies.”

In fact, Whalley served as the caddy for Ben Hogan in the celebrated 1953 exhibition match at Salem CC in Peabody that included Sam Snead, Jimmy Demaret and Jack Burke.

Whalley, who is affiliated with Bear Hill in Stoneham, had a chance to shoot 59 at Newton Commonwealth, where he made seven straight birdies, but he three-putted 18. “I think I got afraid that I might shoot 59. Don’t ask me why,” Whalley lamented.

Ed is equally proud of Ken’s achievements as an amateur, including the 70 he shot at Winchester CC where they played together in a pro-am, and, of course, the 66 he recorded while winning his second of three North Shore Amateurs in 2001 at Far Corner in West Boxford.

“I’ve always looked at the North Shore Amateur as a good tournament for several reasons,” Ken Whalley explained. “The tournament comes in late August when I’ve had a chance to play a fair share of my summer golf. My game is usually in good shape, as it was that year, and Far Corner is a fair and solid test. You can be rewarded or penalized, based on the level of your play. In the case of that 66, I’d been playing well coming in and I kept it going in that round (the first of the 36-hole event).”

Whalley, who also won the 1989 and 2002 North Shore Ams, played a near-perfect round by his standards. He hit 17 greens in regulation, made six birdies and 12 pars, and reached two of the course’s enticing par-5s in two for two-putt birdies. His last birdie putt, an eight-footer, came on the uphill, dogleg right par-4 16th.

“Like on 16, it seemed all day I was looking at eight-foot uphill putts for birdie,” Whalley explained. “I drove the ball well, and hit my approaches on the correct side of the hole to have a lot of easy putts, and that’s a key at Far Corner. Put the ball on the wrong side of the hole and you’re going to make three-putts. I think the longest putt I had was a 15-footer.

“The best part of the round, though, was my mental aspect. I never had a doubt about the shots I was hitting, my club selection, even the line of my putts. There was no indecision the whole round, and that’s unusual.”

Whalley, a former Massachusetts and New England Junior champion, could recall other competitive rounds where he made six or seven birdies, but had some missteps as well, reducing his score to 70 or 71.

“I had everything going in my favor,” the former St. John’s Prep and Duke University player said. “It was a calm, dry day, I had good control of my shots and I hit my approaches close to the hole.”

Whalley has maintained a high level of amateur play despite a challenging career in the oil business coupled with the equally challenging task of helping to raise a family. As recently as 2005 he qualified and played in the U.S. Amateur at Merion.

“Work and family come first,” Whalley says, “but I’ll always try and keep golf as part of my life. It’s been a wonderful part of it to this point.”

A working man’s 61

Phil Miceli has a special relationship with Sagamore Spring golf course in Lynnfield. He loves the course for two reasons: he works on the maintenance crew and considers the property a part of himself, and also because he shoots low numbers there – seriously low numbers.

Like the almost unfathomable 61 that stands not only as the Sagamore standard, but the standard for all course records established in the North Shore Golf magazine readership area where the course par is 70 or higher.

“It seems like I’ve been playing out of Sagamore forever,” says Miceli, 35, a Wakefield native who won the State Public Links title in 2005 at Cranberry Valley with a superb 72-68-140 return. “Actually, it’s been only since I was 18, but add to that the fact I’ve been working on the maintenance crew for six years and that adds up to an awful lot of rounds here.”

Phil Miceli

Included in that history is one magical round in August of 2003 when Miceli went out in 29 and came back in 32 while playing a small stakes match with a few of his buddies.

“All it takes is a few bucks to be on the line and I have to grind it all the way,” said Miceli, who has qualified for match play in the Mass. Amateur and finished in the top 10 of the Mass. Mid-Amateur each of the last two years.

“It was a beautiful day in August and I had no indication I’d shoot so low. I felt good before we started, but nothing out of the ordinary.”

It’s safe to say, however, that things got mighty out of the ordinary right from the very first tee.

“When I eagled one, a reachable par-five, with a 15-foot putt, then birdied three and four, I wondered what might be in store,” Miceli, a stocky 5-10, 210 pounds, remembered. “When I birdied seven and nine (thanks to an 8-foot putt on the 210-yard hole) for 29, I really began to wonder.”

Miceli, a standout baseball player in high school, continued his hot roll on the backside. He birdied 10 and 11 and eagled the par-5 455-yard 12th with a 20-footer to go 10-under.

“Now I got nervous,” he said. “I was thinking about shooting 59. But I missed a good birdie chance on 13, overshot the 14th green and made bogey.” A tight 7-iron on the 15th got him his next – and final – birdie, before parring the last three holes for his 10-under-par masterpiece.

“I still could have made 59,” he said, “but I missed a 10-footer on 16 and a 25-footer on 18. But who was to complain? Not me. I had two good playing partners for 18 holes in Arthur Weglewski and Brett Fellows, and I was grateful to shoot as low as I did.”

Miceli, who won his ninth Sagamore club championship in 2007, had shot low Sagamore numbers before this. He’d beaten the previous mark, held for many years by Ross Coon, by one when he shot 63 on two occasions in 2002.

“I’ve kept a pretty fair swing and tempo over the years thanks to Ben Tropeano,” said Miceli of his neighbor, who put Miceli to work on his paving company and who first got him on the golf course. “He started me out, taught me the game and how to behave on a golf course.”

Frank Dully II:

On a course record roll

In the annals of North Shore golf, no player has ever been on a course record binge quite like Kernwood Country Club head professional Frank Dully II. Just turned 41, the Connecticut native is unquestionably in the prime of his playing career while at the same time ably serving his supportive membership.

At age 41 Frank Dully II already owns or shares three different North Shore course records.

“Over the last few years I’ve found myself in that ‘zone’ in competition, where everything seems to go right, where I’m confident every shot I take, every putt I stroke, and I post a good score,” said Dully, a former Holy Cross golf captain. “It’s all part of a process I’ve been going through for years. You learn from experience how to play certain shots, how not to think about negative things, and the round goes well.”

Dully’s run at course records began at Turner Hill in 2004, when he shot a 7-under 65 in the new course’s first event, a New England PGA pro-am. He topped that in resounding fashion the following August when, under far more challenging conditions in the NEPGA Championship, he shot 66 in the closing round for a 54-hole total of 205, 11-under-par, and a record 12-stroke victory. Because that round was contested under strictly individual stroke-play conditions, Turner Hill recognizes the 66 as the club’s standard.

“I’ll always remember that last round,” Dully, who had finished second in five previous NEPGAs, said. “I birdied the first two holes and saved the round with a shot out of the trees on 16 that landed one foot from the hole for my last birdie.”

Dully capped off his 2007 season with a course-record-tying 65 in a late-season pro-am at Tedesco, matching the mark set by Charles Volpone (1971) and Pat Bates (2003) when they won Massachusetts Opens.

“That was another shotgun start and a satisfying round, but nothing matched my round at Kernwood,” Dully said.

Dully’s round at his home course last June is probably the greatest competitive round he’s ever played. Paired the first two rounds of the Massachusetts Open with defending champion Geoff Sisk, the duo squared off in one of the more memorable two-man battles. Dully shot a 69 and Sisk a 68 in the first round. The second day, they both turned on the jets with a pair of scintillating six-under-par 64s, matching the course record set 13 years earlier by Dana Quigley in a National Club Pro qualifier. With the KCC membership out in full force for a final round showdown, Sisk shot 68 to Dully’s 71 and won a record sixth Mass. Open title (tying him with Alex Ross for the most titles) with a three-day total of 10-under-par 200.

Even with Sisk’s accomplishment, Dully was the tournament’s star in the eyes of most of the gallery and all of the host membership. Facing the ultimate competitive test – on his home course against perennial favorite Sisk – Dully had played magnificent golf – and gained a share of the course record to boot.

“That was a special Mass. Open for my members and me and the 64 made it extra special,” Dully said. “The way Geoff and I fed off each other and both shot that number. We put on quite a show for the gallery and we had fun doing it; an unbelievable experience. I’d been thinking about this Open for several years, how I would play, and, well, I’m glad I could help make it a terrific tournament.”

Now in his 18th year at the venerable Salem club, Dully has no idea what 2008 will bring, but says he would welcome a few more course-record efforts.

“You never know what you’re going to shoot on a given day, but the key is not thinking about it if you get a good round going,” said Dully, who credits his switch to a belly putter in recent years for a lot of his success. “As soon as you think about it, you’re going to make a mistake. You just have to keep playing with positive thoughts until you get to the finish line; keep trying to make good swings and birdies. Whatever happens, I’ll always be proud of these course records I’ve shot. They’re a neat sidebar to my overall career."