Bailey shows true love in game of golf

ROCKLAND – Crazy Gil Bailey wasn’t always known as Crazy. He used to be just plain old Gil. But in 1979 after losing his shirt on the Tidewater Golf Club in Trenton, Gil Bailey went out and found himself a new shirt and came up with an idea that earned him a nickname.

“I decided to buy White Birches. They said I was crazy as a hoot owl. Well, they’re still scratching their heads trying to figure out how I did it,” Bailey said.

Bailey told the story Tuesday as he prepared to begin his first round of the 1999 R.H. Foster Energy/Mobil Paul Bunyan Amateur Golf tournament at the Rockland Golf Club. He is introduced as a sandbagger and although he vehemently denies the accusation, the 67-year-old man’s face doesn’t support the denial. He is having too much fun.

“Look at this place. It’s a beautiful day and we’re on a golf course. I drove by a cemetery this morning. Those people there aren’t playing golf. So, I guess I’m on the right side of the green from them,” Bailey said.

To borrow from a popular phrase of a few years ago – crazy is as crazy does. While the Tidewater Golf Club became the Bar Harbor Golf Club, Bailey’s crazy idea at White Birches in Ellsworth flourished. In addition to the nine-hole golf course, Crazy Gil’s place has a restaurant that will seat 450 for dinner and a 70-unit motel.

Now, he wants to make changes to the golf course. Changes that he says already have people telling him how nuts he is. Bailey says he wants to revamp his nine-hole golf course. He wants to turn it into a tough little 18-hole, par-3 course. Oh yeah, and he wants to add lights for night play.

“There are a million people out there looking for something to do at night,” Bailey said with a shrug.

Still crazy after all these years.

On the course at Rockland, Bailey played strong. He said prior to teeing off that he would be happy with an 85. He is well matched with playing partners Allen McDougall, a civilian working at the Defense Finance Center and his co-worker in Limestone, Air Force Tech Sgt. Al Schmidt.

The threesome joked their way through the round. Bailey, a lefty, told the group that the pro shop at White Birches has the best selection of used, left-handed drivers in the state. A testament, no doubt, to Bailey’s search for the perfect club.

Schmidt said that McDougall used to work for him in Limestone but he that he ridded himself of him. McDougall responded that Schmidt was holding him back.

But it is Bailey who carried the conversation and also led the younger men by a couple of strokes on the first nine.

He told of how he won a $2,500 set of clubs in a raffle while on a trip to the Foxwoods Resort in Connecticut.

“That set of clubs only cost me about $10,000,” he said with a smile and a wink.

Nothing bothers him, Bailey claims. Not on a golf course. It’s the best place in the world to be. Errant shots don’t seem to faze him. Neither do the catcalls of a group young boys who were throwing rocks into the water of a granite quarry near the eighth hole tee box. The youngsters, based on their use of language, were not on summer break from divinity school. But Bailey laughed it off.

“They’re just doing what we did when we were kids,” he says.

After shooting a smooth 40 on the front nine, Bailey looked like he’d better the 85 that he would find satisfying.

He talked about his operation in Ellsworth. He gives a lot of credit for its success to his stepson Doug Havey who manages the place.

And then it happened. The wheels came slightly off the cart and he shot 46 on the back nine to finish with an 86. Perhaps part of his problem may have been what occurred on the 12th hole whn Bailey was lining up a shot from the fairway while talking about his wife of 19 years, Gertrude. He said she keeps everything on an even keel at White Birches. Just as he finished the statement, he looked up and demanded, “What day is it?”

When told it is June 18, he looked skyward and shook his bearded face.

“Our anniversary was yesterday. I forgot it,” he said, pausing to think over the situation. “On the bright side, at least I’m alive to have forgotten it. And besides. If you’re crazy you have an alibi.”