Blustery conditions make the goal elusive
NORTON - Mike Dunham has been around golf his entire life because his father works in the industry, but playing in yesterday's US Open qualifier at TPC Boston was unlike any experience he had ever had. The chilly, overcast weather was made far worse by a blustery wind.
"Those conditions were the most brutal conditions I've ever played in," said the 36-year-old Dunham, who retired last year after 10 seasons as a goaltender in the National Hockey League. "The wind out there had to be 30 miles an hour. It was two- and three-club winds out there.
"If you just take the course in itself, it's a hard golf course. Then you add the hazards in there. Then you throw the winds in there, it was very tough."
Dunham didn't score as well as he hoped, firing an 8-over-par 81, but given the circumstances, he'll take it.
"I hit the ball pretty well," he said. "I just wanted to play a solid round. I was at 5 over with four holes to play. I birdied No. 14 and then I took a double [bogey] on No. 15 and kind of hurt my chances.
"It's fun playing these things. But the conditions were tough. The only thing that would've been worse is if it had been raining or snowing."
The top seven scorers and two alternates were culled from yesterday's field and will compete in the sectionals in early June.
The wind and cold didn't seem to bother medalist Jim Renner of Plainville, who shot a 1-under 71. The 2005 New England Amateur champion will be joined in the sectionals by Kernwood CC pro Frank Dully (72), Brandon Parker (73) of Auburn, James Burke (73) of Newton, Mike Welch (74) of Quincy, Peter Williamson (74) of Hanover, N.H., and Bobby Pandolfi (74) of South Yarmouth.
The US Open will be held June 12-15 at Torrey Pines South Course in San Diego.
"It was very cold out there, the ball wasn't going very far," said Dunham, whose home course is Old Sandwich in Plymouth. "When it does get up in the air, it's just floating everywhere.
"Guys were having to make 5- or 6-footers to save par. I didn't do enough of that today. I probably missed four or five of those. You always want them to go in, but they didn't go in today. But you just try to keep getting better."
Dunham, who now works as a goalie coach for the New York Islanders, said one of the reasons he played yesterday was to help chip off the rust from the long offseason.
"A lot of these guys play this sport for a living," said Dunham. "I'm playing it for fun, so I use this as something to kick-start the tournament season.
"Obviously, you always want to go lower, and that's what is great about this game - you can always do better. But for the first tournament of the summer, in these conditions, the length of the course that we played it - we played it at just under 7,000 yards - that's a hard golf course.
"You walk off, and whether you played it good or bad, I still enjoyed it. I had a lot of fun out there."
Dunham's father was a golf pro at Vestal Hills Country Club in Binghamton, N.Y., so Mike was always around the pro shop, cleaning carts and clubs. He began playing more during the summers home from the University of Maine and added even more rounds during his summer breaks from pro hockey.
One of the attractions for him is the peacefulness of the sport, which is the antithesis of the chaos on the ice in hockey.
"A lot of hockey players enjoy playing golf," he said. "It's a quiet atmosphere. You get to kind of decompress. There is camaraderie when you play with your buddies in a foursome."
Many hockey players - and pro athletes in general - have a difficult transition period from the time they leave their sport until they find something they enjoy as much. Dunham said he didn't have that issue because he went right to the Islanders.
"It was an easy transfer because I was still involved with the game without playing, without going out and getting hit with pucks," he said. "I got to travel, I got to go out on the ice for practice, I got to sit in the locker room and the coaches room and watch the games from up in the press box.
"I was around that whole atmosphere without having to play. That made the transition a lot easier. Golf is just something that keeps those competitive juices flowing."
There is only one bad aspect of his new hockey job: It's cutting into his golf.
"I'll miss the Mass. Amateur and the New England Amateur because we have rookie camps," he said. "I'm really bummed out about that. We have our rookies and draft picks coming into Long Island to put them through workouts, and it's those two weeks."
Nancy Marrapese-Burrell can be reached at marrapese@globe.com. 