Too much rain. Too many months of poor playing conditions. Gusty
winds.
And — did we mention — too much rain?
Those were the key reasons behind a widely held myth: The
Northwest is not conducive to creating great golfers, and on those
rare occasions where a great player emerged, the best thing was to
leave for sunnier climes as soon as possible.
That myth isn't just being broken, it's being obliterated.
Record numbers of Northwest players have been on the major golf
tours the past couple of years, the University of Washington men's
golf team has become a national powerhouse and the UW women's team
is re-emerging.
No longer is the Northwest a distant outpost, looked down upon
by the golfing world. You can become great playing in the
Northwest. Just ask the people who would know.
"Is it a disadvantage? Maybe the opposite," said rising PGA Tour
star Kyle Stanley. "It teaches you to battle the elements a little
bit, and it prepares you for all types of golfing conditions."
Fred Couples, the greatest golfer the state has produced,
agrees.
"I always thought it was a huge advantage to grow up in
Seattle," he said.
For years, Couples carried the Northwest mantle nearly by
himself. Now he has plenty of help.
Ten players from the Northwest have been playing on the PGA Tour
the past couple of years. They include Ryan Moore, the Puyallup
player who had one of the greatest amateur careers in history
before finding success on the PGA Tour, and Jimin Kang, the King's
High School of Shoreline graduate who is a two-time winner on the
LPGA Tour.
"Having someone on the Tour like Fred Couples, who was a
glamorous player, being from Seattle, helped inspire Ryan to think
that maybe he could do it too," said Mike Moore, Ryan's father, who
owned The Classic in Spanaway, the course Ryan grew up playing.
"Ryan had success and now there are others, like Kyle Stanley,
who saw that and are now doing great," Mike Moore said. "Success
begets success."
You don't need to leave
While most of the greats left the Northwest after high school,
Seattle legend Don Bies stayed put.
Bies, 74, who won once on the PGA Tour and seven times on the
Champions Tour, never felt the need to leave.
"You can still live here and play on the Tour," Bies said. "I
don't think it's a disadvantage at all. I don't believe you need to
play every day, especially after you develop your game. It's good
to get away. Look at Steve Stricker, who lives in Wisconsin. Living
in a place where you can't play every day — it gives you a
break."
The University of Washington was not a power when Couples left
O'Dea High School in Seattle to play at Houston.
"I am sure if I had gone to Washington, I would have become the
same player," he said.
Couples said the conditions he faced at Jefferson Park Golf
Course in Seattle served him well.
"On a nice day, I could hit drives 300 or 350 yards, then
certain days I would have a hard time driving it 250," he said. "It
could be a totally different course. And the small green sizes made
me a good iron player. I learned how to hit a 7-iron onto the small
greens."
Tree-lined courses in the area? That made him improve his
driving accuracy. It's no wonder that Riviera Country Club in Los
Angeles is one of his favorite courses on the PGA Tour.
"It reminds me of (Seattle's) Broadmoor Country Club," he
said.
Ryan Moore became a superstar at UNLV, forging one of the
greatest amateur records in history. Moore said the lessons he
learned playing in the Northwest stayed with him.
"Being from the Northwest, you have to learn how to practice
more efficiently," said Moore, who won the 2004 U.S. Amateur.
"There aren't 14-day forecasts of nothing but sun, so you have to
do more in short periods of time, and I still had that in my system
when I went to Las Vegas."
A local powerhouse
PGA Tour players Troy Kelly and Richard H. Lee played at
Washington. So did Alex Prugh, who is on the Nationwide Tour after
spending a couple of years on the PGA Tour.
Paige Mackenzie played at UW before moving to the LPGA Tour.
The UW men are ranked No. 9 in the nation. Junior Chris Williams
from Moscow, Idaho, is ranked No. 6 in the world amateur rankings
and Cheng-Tsung Pan from Taiwan is No. 10.
For decades, the Huskies had little success in golf. The school
couldn't recruit the top players with the weather issue always at
the forefront.
"I probably believed like everyone else, that to become great
you had to go somewhere that you can play in good conditions all
the time — that's the easy way to think about it," said UW men's
coach Matt Thurmond, who grew up in Burlington. "But now I think
it's actually an advantage, and I think we've showed that by how
we've competed against schools like Arizona and Arizona State."
Thurmond said playing in tough elements is just part of the
game, and points to the game's origins in Great Britain, where
gusty winds and rain prevail.
"Golf is an outdoor, rugged sport, where you have to play in
rough conditions," Thurmond said. "Think of the diversity of
conditions we have to play in. Lots of varying weather, uneven
lies, there is rough year round. You wouldn't know anything other
than a flat lie if you lived your whole life in Orlando. If you
look at the top players in the world, very few come from the warmer
climates."
In 2005, UW's James Lepp won the NCAA championship, and in 2010,
Nick Taylor won the Hogan Award, college golf's equivalent of the
Heisman Trophy.
But the real proof that the myth about Northwest golf was gone
came when Pan, who was rated as the top recruit in the country,
chose UW.
Count Couples among those who are impressed. A big Husky fan, he
toured the program's indoor facility recently.
"Impressed? I was like, 'Are you kidding me?' " said Couples of
the UW golfing facility at Edmundson Pavilion. "That's an amazing
place they have, and they have a great thing going there."
Never going back
Thurmond said great junior players have always been in the area,
but that in the past couple of decades they have traveled out of
the area more and have tested themselves against other top players
in the nation.
More and more, they are performing well — just like the local
players at the highest level.
"I don't just follow the Huskies and the Seattle pro teams,"
Couples said. "I also follow the golfers from the area, and I hope
there are more."
That seems certain.
For Thurmond, it's proof of something he knew all along.
"We've always been able to produce great players, and it's
become a good golf community, too," he said. "We have excellent
courses, the players are gravitating toward excellence, and the
college programs are doing well now. All of that encourages the
whole concept."
That being from the Northwest is no disadvantage at all.
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