When play gets under way Thursday in the first round of the Senior Open the first United States Golf Association championship to be conducted at the Sahalee Country Club in Sammamish, Wash. Parker will be just plain Rich to his playing partners. He said he would be content being anonymous compared with the threesome of Jay Haas, Nick Price and Hale Irwin, which tees off at 12:50 p.m., two groups after his 12:30 tee time.
After all, it has been 20 years since Parker teed up in the 1990 United States Open, the first and only U.S.G.A. championship he had played until this week.
I dont feel like Im out here playing in the U.S. Open like I did last time, he said. I feel like Im just out here playing in a golf tournament. I couldnt care less whos out here. Im playing with guys I dont know. Theyre like kind of nobodies like I am, so itll be fun, you know.
That Parker was able to shoot a round of 65 in qualifying to earn a spot in the field is one of the many charms of an Open championship. It is a window into how small the golf world is and how minute the differences are between players at the highest levels of a game, with few degrees of separation between a 50-year-old college golf coach and Irwin, a three-time United States Open champion.
Even so, Parker is plotting no competitive comeback, and he labors under no misapprehensions about his game. When Im out here, I feel like I belong here, he said in a phone interview. When Im at home, I feel like I belong at home. The difference is, when Im at home, I have three kids and a wife, so I know I belong at home.
Back when he was trying to play golf for a living, Parkers United States Open experience was at Medinah Country Club, where Irwin won the last of his three Opens. At the time, he was playing on the Hogan Tour (now the Nationwide Tour), teeing it up each week against eventual PGA Tour winners like Tom Lehman and Olin Browne, with whom he played a practice round this week.
After missing the cut at the 1990 Open, and after one final run at the touring pro life in 1994, Parker settled down in Lebanon. He kept his game sharp, winning PGA player of the year honors in Vermont (1997) and New Hampshire (1999) and building the program at Dartmouth into a winner since taking it over in 2006.
But like all athletes who once competed against the best, Parker never lost the desire to test his game again. This time, though, he prepared differently. He was often accompanied at evening practice sessions by his daughters Virginia, 15, a member of the Lebanon High School golf team, and Anna, 12 and his son Trey, 9, a Little League player who shagged practice shots with a baseball glove.
And now that he will be breaking out his game on the big stage, he wants to enjoy the experience more than he did in 1990, when he wore himself out before the event began. His attitude is relaxed. Browne said in a text message that his old friend was still Jack Benny in a crew cut.
I know theres a ton of people in New England who are following this, and this whole thing is awesome, Parker said. If I play good, awesome. If I dont, hey, Im not trying to go to the moon or something. This is golf. It wont be the last time I play.
AN APPEALING PITCH Although this will be something of a home game for the Seattle-born Fred Couples in the Senior Open, there is nothing regional about Coupless appeal as a pitchman. The makers of Ecco shoes have found out that Couples appeals to shoe buyers of all ages and will be using this weeks Open to build on the success they had with him wearing their Golf Street sneakers at the Masters.
Before the Masters, the company had forecast selling 2,000 pairs of the style for the entirety of 2010. The company increased production of the shoes afterward and said that it would deliver close to 100,000 pairs this year in the United States and that it had increased its international projections by tens of thousands of pairs.
WOODS TO PLAY IN OHIO Tiger Woods will play at the W.G.C.-Bridgestone Invitational at the Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio, a tournament he has won three of the four times since Bridgestone assumed sponsorship and four of the previous seven times, played in 1999-2005, when N.E.C. was the sponsor. The tournament runs Aug. 3-8.
Woods, who said he was pleased with most aspects of his play at the British Open at St. Andrews two weeks ago, will try to rediscover his putting touch on the fast greens of the South Course at Firestone.
TEENAGER SHOOTS 57 Bobby Wyatt shot a 57 at the Alabama Boys State Junior Championship. Wyatt, who is bound for the University of Alabama, turns 18 this weekend.
Wyatt had 12 birdies, an eagle and five pars on the par-71, 6,628-yard course at the Country Club of Mobile. His birdie putt hung on the lip on the 18th green, and he had to settle for par. Wyatt needed 23 putts total and shot a nine-under-par 26 on the front nine. Wyatt has won the states junior championship the past three years.
Ryo Ishikawas 58 in the final round of the The Crowns tournament on the Japan Tour on May 2 is the lowest score on a major tour. (AP)
However, they do offer heels, oxfords, and the like, just FYI…