Casual Friday is fond of reading about life on the PGA
Tour back in the
1930s, '40s, '50s.
In addition to great players on a smaller tour, there existed a sense
of family in those days that is different than what we find on the
tour today. Probably the primary reason for that closeness -- not that
guys weren't trying to beat each others brains in week after week --
was that players often traveled together from tournament to tournament.
It was sort of an Animal House road trip without the alcohol and
women, for the most part. (A few years ago Casual Friday would have
wondered what was the point of a road trip without alcohol and women,
but now he is beginning to understand.)
There are great stories from those days, from tour cutups like Ky
Laffoon and Lefty Stackhouse, to the legendary Ben Hogan, who had the
tires stolen from his Buick in California in 1938 when he had no money
to replace them. Hogan went out and shot a final-round 67 in Oakland
to earn a check for $285, his largest ever to that point.
With the advent of cheap air travel, all that changed. Many players
own or lease their own planes now. All that began, of course, with
Arnold Palmer, who flew himself from tournament to tournament while
making his indelible mark on the game.
So Casual Friday was very surprised to learn last week that one of
the tour's stars, Davis Love III, has joined the small group of players
who are wheeling motor homes from tournament to tournament, a retro
movement if there ever was one.
Probably like many of us, the image that pops in Casual Friday's
brain when he thinks of motor homes involves Florida and an 80-year-old
guy wearing white socks with sandals, a baseball hat with plastic mesh
in the back and hunched over the wheel of one of these monster vehicles
while driving 35 mph. Did we mention the long line of irritated drivers
behind him?
It's a bit of culture shock to picture DLIII, the most button-downed
guy in a button-down sport (and Casual Friday thinks buttoned-down
is a very good thing) wheeling his own motor home into the Country
Club at Mirasol or Doral or ..., no, surely not Augusta National.
Love parked his home on wheels close to the first tee at Mirasol.
"I can roll out of bed this morning and half an hour later, sneak
over here, see how they were doing," he said last week. "It's awful
nice."
Love, who began using the motor home last year, figures he'll ride
in comfort to about 15 events this season.
One of his neighbors last week was John Daly.
"He's trying to tell me
how to fix my generator yesterday, and he was wrong, but other than
that, keep him away from the tools and we're
OK."
Love is an avid fan of the motor home life.
"I haven't been this excited about traveling on tour in a long time,
because I have my stuff with me all the time and it makes me it a lot
of fun," Love said.
No word yet on whether Daly serenades his neighbors around the grill
with cuts from his latest album.
DOUBLE CLICK
www.eddiecaminetti.com
Eddie Caminetti, the hero of Troon McAllister's The Green is
back in a new -- and very funny -- golf novel, Scratch.
Unlike McAllister's follow-up to the The Green, The Foursome,
Caminetti plays a major role in Scratch. And he's at his scheming
best as he pulls one over on the golf ball industry.
