Tourney is family affair for B-flighter> Readings descend on Kebo

BAR HARBOR – It won’t go down as a personal highlight in his 35 years of golf, but Friday was a good day just the same for Bangor’s Brian Reading.

The 40-year-old architect/golfing enthusiast had just double-bogeyed on the final hole for a 17-over-par score of 87 in the first round of the 36th R.H. Foster Energy/Mobil Paul Bunyan Amateur Tournament.

“I thought I’d do much better today. If I’d shot an 82, I’d have been happy,” said Reading, disappointed but still smiling.

The sources of his smile were hard to miss. Less than a chip shot away, his 6-year-old daughter Mariah and 3-year-old son Liam were playing on the Kebo Valley Club practice putting green as wife Claire looked on.

“No cartwheels on the green, please,” said Reading as his daughter tried to dazzle her parents with some newfound gymnastic moves.

Meanwhile, Liam muckled onto a dead tree branch about four times larger than he was and dragged it over to his father, perhaps to use in lieu of a club.

“Papa, here’s a stick for you,” said the young ball of fire with reddish-sandy hair.

Of the 161 golfers who teed off in the Bunyan’s B flight at Kebo Friday, Reading may have best personified Father’s Day.

“I typically have Fridays off anyway and it’s so close to Father’s Day, we tried to make it a family-type activity,” Reading said. “It’s part of the Father’s Day experience. Claire wants to make it a special day for me.”

Talk about an accomodating wife. For his 40th birthday in April, Claire bought her husband a trip to California to play golf at Pebble Beach Golf Links, which charges $325 for one round of golf on the famed course.

“I’m lucky,” said Brian Reading. “I have a wonderful, loving wife who knows what a passion it is of mine and she makes a few sacrifices so I can play.”

So how was the trip?

“I stunk up the place, but it was neat,” he said. “It was really something. That was fun, even though it was cold and it was the worst golf I’ve ever played.”

Claire Reading, a communications and journalism department professor at the University of Maine, grew up playing tennis, but she plans to take golf lessons.

“We actually watch it together on television, but I think that all has to do with Tiger Woods,” Claire said with a laugh.

The entire Reading family has been infected by the golfing bug, especially Liam.

“We’ll sit on the weekends, if he’s mellow enough, and watch golf,” said Reading. “I’ll have a beer and pretzels and he’ll have his orange juice and pretzels and we’ll watch together.

“He loves it. He doesn’t like direction very much but he loves the idea of the ball going in the hole and whacking stuff around.”

“I like to get the ball in the hole,” said Liam, who has his own customized clubs, which his father bought at a yard sale, whittled down, and regripped.

The Readings will head to Rockland Golf Club for the second round and back to Bangor Municipal, Brian’s home course, for Sunday’s final round. It’s a lot of travel, but the children don’t seem to mind.

“I said we were going to watch Dad play golf today,” said Claire Reading. “Liam held that golf club in his hand, and the whole time he wouldn’t let it go.”

“Golfing is a wonderful thing,” Brian Reading said simply.

A wonderful thing Reading hopes to share with his family and turn into a longtime family activity.

“Mariah’s probably ready to learn to hit the ball now and Liam, maybe in a couple of years,” he said. “It would be really nice for all of us to get out together, but that’s probably not going to happen for another five or six years.”