Long, strange trips
Globe-trotting is one of golf's staples
NORTON -- Try as he did, he couldn't avoid the bogeys. They were part of the landscape.
But the monkey brains? Tom Sieckmann was perfect. He never indulged, not even a taste.
"Fresher the better, at least that's what I was told," said Sieckmann, who treated balut similarly.
"It's a fertilized duck egg, and they told me it was a delicacy, but I didn't go for it."
What Sieckmann did go for was the golf, no matter where it took him. In some ways, the more exotic the locale, the better.
"When I look back, I'd say that the nicest places I visited might not be known for their golf, but they're just beautiful, beautiful places," said Sieckmann, who is settled these days in his beloved home state, Nebraska, though there was a time when he was living proof that golf as a global sport is not a new phenomenon. For years, passionate players have quenched their thirst for competition by visiting all corners of the earth.
Want further proof? Consider a legend from years gone by, Paul Harney, who lives a quiet life down in Falmouth and is too humble to gloat about his exploits, which are impressive. In an era when travel was nowhere the convenience it is now, he managed to raise a family, work a club job, and win seven times on the PGA Tour. But delve deeper and you'll find a victory in the Egyptian Match Play Championship.
Egypt? The one with sand and pyramids and mummys?
Harney laughed. Indeed, he was there in 1956, long before pro golfers parked their Lear Jets, Gulfstreams, and Cessnas next to their Mercedeses.
"I was asked by Fred Corcoran [the legendary native of Cambridge who could be called the first commissioner of the PGA Tour] to play over there and I was thrilled to do so," said Harney. "I was representing my country and that was an honor."
It was early April, and Harney had not been invited to the Masters, nor had West Virginian Mike Krak, so the two of them headed overseas for back-to-back tournaments. In the Cairo Open, Harney played reasonably well, though Englishman Bernard Hunt won. The next week in Alexandria, however, things came together with Harney's game as he steamrolled New Zealander Frank Phillips, 10 and 9, in the final of the Egyptian Match Play.
While it doesn't rank with the British Open or even the San Diego Open, which Harney won in 1972, the Egyptian Match Play wasn't filled with 10-handicappers. A gentleman by the name of Bobby Locke won it in 1954 and Gary Player prevailed in 1955, and both were in the field when Harney triumphed -- in record-setting style, no less.
Let the record show that Harney went out in 32 to tie the front-nine mark at Smouha Golf Club, then he broke it in the afternoon with a 31. En route to his victory, Harney led, 5 up, through the first 18 and helped cement things with a 24-foot eagle putt on the fourth hole in the afternoon.
Impressive stuff, even more so when one considers the sort of effort Harney needed just to make it to Egypt.
"I don't remember the details, I think we flew first to Ireland," he said, "but I know it was a lot of long, slow plane rides."
They are shorter, faster plane rides today, which is why a player on today's scene -- Bernhard Langer -- can finish off a tournament in the Netherlands on Sunday and be in California a few days later without a hint of jet lag. Had he accepted his spot in the
It is proof that the American PGA Tour is the world's No. 1 destination point for those saturated in golf talent. Sieckmann will grant you that. Just don't start gushing about golf in the year 2007 being a global sport, "because it's always been an international game," he said.
Call him on it and Sieckmann may show you passports stamped with countries you didn't know existed.
"I went to Japan. I played Europe. I played South Africa. I played South America. I played Switzerland. I traveled a little bit," said Trevino.
He won the Mexico Open and he also won something called the Morocco Grand Prix.
As for what brought him to Morocco, Trevino laughs.
"A golf tournament. That's what we do for a living. We play golf for a living."
Have clubs, will travel. That's a time-honored motto in the world of golf, though it was more relevant in eras gone by, at least as far as American-born players are concerned. Sure, the PGA Tour here in the US is populated by men from Australia and South Africa, Sweden and Spain, England and Argentina, but there is a far different view of things when you flip that picture over.
American-born players needn't chase golf opportunities throughout the world. There's plenty of money to be made right here in the US, thanks to the Nationwide Tour -- a kind of Triple A league -- and a solid list of regionalized minitours.
"The only way [Americans] have to travel now is to chase world-ranking points," said Peter Jacobsen, he of the seven PGA Tour wins. Oh, and the 1979 Western Australia Open.
He went there for two reasons. "One, I wanted to take a bunch of airplane rides," he said with a laugh. "But mostly, I was looking to play anywhere I could."
There simply weren't enough opportunities for a 22-year-old in 1979, which is sort of why Sieckmann ended up overseas. His roommate at Oklahoma State was a native of Brazil intent on trying the European PGA Tour, so Sieckmann went along after missing out at the PGA Tour's Qualifying Tournament.
"[Europe] was the next-best thing. There was no Nationwide Tour. We had to go find a place to play," he said.
It opened up another world to Sieckmann -- literally. He played throughout Europe, Asia, South Africa, and even in South America, where stops in Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and Colombia are still fondly remembered. So, too, are the down times recalled.
"I got malaria once [in Asia] and had to sleep with mosquito nets over my bed," he said. "Trust me when I tell you we didn't stay in four- and five-star hotels."
There are no regrets, however, "because I learned things overseas in those six or seven years that I couldn't have learned any other way," said Sieckmann, whose best stretch of play in his time overseas also produced perhaps the greatest anxiety he's ever had. He had won the Philippines Open, then placed second in Hong Kong and third in Thailand.
"Now, over there, after every tournament we would go into the back room and wait a few hours while they figured out how much we were going to get paid," said Sieckmann. "They would then hand you $100 American bills and after that good stretch I had, I must have had something like $60,000. I kept it in a money belt around my waist, because there wasn't any sort of international banking system back then."
Sieckmann carried that money around for several days, until he reached Singapore and was able to wire it home. What he also relayed home was word about the brilliant players against whom he was competing.
"I think the perception [in the US] back then was that what they had overseas were just a bunch of minitours, but there was nothing good," he said. "I kept telling people that there are some pretty good players over here."
Back in the mid 1970s, Sieckmann mentioned players like Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo, Greg Norman, but his friends back home yawned. He also talked of very good players in China and Japan.
"I think they figured that if they weren't in the US, how good could they be?"
Even those with comfortable PGA Tour careers often found the desire to go outside the American borders in search of competition. Jay Haas, for instance, won the 1991 Mexico Open, beating Ed Fiori in a playoff. Craig Stadler once won the Argentine Open, and Tom Watson won tournaments in Japan, Asia, and Australia.
Jack Nicklaus? He's a six-time Australian Open champ. Arnold Palmer won open championships in Panama and Colombia, Ray Floyd prevailed in Brazil and Costa Rica. Among his victories, Hale Irwin counts titles in South Africa, Brazil, and even the Bahamas, while Tom Kite once triumphed in New Zealand. Even Scott Hoch lays claim to wins in Japan (two), Korea (two), and the ever-popular Dutch Open.
"We would always be looking to play, to earn a little bit of money," said Haas, who knows that isn't the case anymore. Davis Love and Phil Mickelson, just to cite two marquee examples, have but one win each outside the US and save for their Ryder Cup and British Open appearances, they rarely have they ventured overseas.
For good reason, of course.
With 79 players having earned at least $1 million this season, the riches are beyond comprehension for players such as Sieckmann. Even more telling is the Nationwide Tour, where 27 players currently have earned more than $140,000. When he finally made it onto the PGA Tour, in 1985, and settled in for a 10-year run, the most Sieckmann made was $278,596 in 1991. That figure would have placed him 178th on the 2006 PGA Tour money list, nowhere close enough to secure full-time playing status.
"It's all changed, that's for sure," said Sieckmann, 52, who helps teach instructors who've been hired to work for famed short-game guru Dave Pelz and also teaches out of Omaha Country Club. "Now, you can lose your card and still make a pretty good living."
Told that you can flip through the PGA Tour media guy and compile a long list of Americans who haven't played overseas, Sieckmann sighed.
"It's a lot more lucrative, and when you do need to find a place to play, there's no reason to go elsewhere," said Sieckmann. "Now, whether golf is better for it, I can't say."
He'll only say that he wouldn't trade those years overseas, in whatever country he happened to be teeing it up. They were the best of times.
So long as you hold the monkey brains and balut, of course.
