GBO: putts, pars, pros and bull Tourney featured Wadkins, Sluman

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BANGOR – Golf pro Paul Dailey remembers trying to recruit PGA Tour “rabbit” Rocky Thompson to play in the 1978 Greater Bangor Open golf tournament.

A rabbit was a player who had to earn a spot through Monday qualifying for that week’s PGA Tour event.

This particular week at the Pleasant Valley Classic in Sutton, Mass., Thompson hadn’t qualified.

“Who are you that I should be giving you $250 to play in a tournament in Bangor, Maine?” Dailey recalled Thompson saying.

Thompson did sign on, but he made Dailey a promise.

“I’ll tell you what. I’m going to come up there, and I’m going to win that tournament,” Dailey recounted.

It took a one-hole playoff, but Thompson did win.

Dailey, tournament director Harlow “Joe” Floyd, and others who went on recruiting trips over the years wouldn’t come back with one or two, they’d come back with many.

“Anybody who didn’t qualify, we’d try to get them to come up to Bangor,” said Dailey. “[In 1978], Monday qualifying was rained out, so I had to stay over until Tuesday.

“[Floyd] called [Bangor Municipal Golf Course head pro] Austin Kelly. He told me, ‘When you come back, bring 25 pros with you.’ I brought back 23.”

Stories like that abound for the GBO, held in the hearts and minds of the players, volunteers, spectators, and committee people who have been a part of eastern Maine’s longest-running pro tournament.

But after 41 years, the combination of finding enough people to do the work and raising enough sponsorship money means today’s final round of the GBO will be its final round.

The stars

A number of PGA Tour players have cut their teeth on the GBO.

Lanny Wadkins is often the first to come to mind for many of the longtime spectators. He demonstrated his ability by shooting an 8-under-par 64 and a 9-under 63 in the final two rounds, respectively, of the 1971 GBO, known as the Jordan Open that year. He won by a stroke with a then-record total of 15-under-par 201.

Wadkins still remembered it years later and recalled that event in a 1988 BDN interview.

“I got it going there. When you’re going good, you think more and more low numbers,” said Wadkins.

It was his first victory as a pro and earned him $2,000.

Wadkins, who also finished as low pro in the Maine Open in ’71, went on to win 21 PGA Tour events in his career, including the 1977 PGA Championship, the ’79 Tournament Players Championship, and the ’92 Canon Greater Hartford Open (another of the events GBO recruiters would attend, depending on the tour schedule). He also has a Champions Tour victory and was a fierce competitor in Ryder Cup play.

But Wadkins wasn’t the only star. In fact, one of the biggest didn’t even start off as a golf pro.

Former world No. 1 tennis star Ivan Lendl played in the GBO as he tried to kickstart a second career as a touring golf pro. His drive was there, but the results were mixed.

Other future stars included eventual PGA Tour pros Wayne Levi, whose best GBO finish was second in ’75; Bob Eastwood and Dave Eichelberger from the late ’70s; ’77 champ Bruce Douglass (PGA Tour: ’80-84); ’74 victor Bruce Ashworth, who was on tour for three years; Curtis Sifford (six years on tour); and occasional PGA Tour cardholders and GBO veterans Don Robertson and Jeff Lewis.

Wadkins, Levi, Eastwood, and Eichelberger are now competing on the Champions Tour for players age 50 or older.

Jeff Sluman left a lasting mark with his GBO appearances in 1982 and ’84 before making the tour for good. Len Mattiace made a stop in Bangor, and 2005 Tour rookie of the year Sean O’Hair is the most recent GBO player (’03, ’04) to advance to the top rung of pro golf.

Some of this year’s players may yet add their names to the list.

The attraction

It might have been the prize money that attracted the pros to play the first time, but that wasn’t what kept many of them coming back.

“We love it here,” said Kerry Johnston of Indio, Calif. “It’s disappointing to see it end.”

Johnston turned pro in 1980 and played in his first GBO the same year.

“My buddies told me there were a lot of tournaments up here to play in,” he said. “Then I started going to South America, but I always came back here.”

Even this year, he picked it over another opportunity.

“If not for this, I would have been in Scotland trying to qualify for the British Senior Open,” he said.

Johnston believes he has only missed one GBO since he turned pro, but he had a good excuse.

“My mom set up a family cruise [three or four years ago],” he said with a smile. “It’s the sort of thing you can’t say no to.”

He tried to have her schedule it for after the GBO, but it didn’t work out.

“I told her I had some time in late August. Anything I have scheduled then I can get out of,” he said. His sister had a conflict, though.

“Then I find out it’s the same time as the GBO. I was upset, but it’s your mom. What can you do?” he said.

The GBO, especially 20-25 years ago, were almost like family gatherings themselves. Some of the pros and sponsors struck up friendships that lasted for years.

“The people have always been good to us,” said Johnston.

Jim Becker of Bloomfield, Conn., has been coming as long as Johnston.

“Outside of the PGA and Nationwide tours, this is one of the best events in the country,” said Becker. “A lot a of real good players have come through here.”

Local knowledge

Most of the winners have been pros from away, whether it was as close as New Hampshire or as far away as California.

Four Maine players did win, though.

The first was Mark Plummer of Manchester in 1979, after he regained his amateur status following a short stint as a pro.

The next, in 1986, was Mike Baker, a Hermon native who was an assistant pro at Penobscot Valley Country Club in Orono. He was declared co-champion when the final round was washed out.

In 1996, Brian Lawton of Hampden won in a playoff, and Hampden native John Hickson won the following year.

Other memories

One of the biggest memories, literally, was a load of bull – Dallas the bull.

It escaped from a rodeo at the Bangor State Fair during the pro-am round in 1986 and eventually ended up on the golf course.

Bangor Muni head pro Brian Enman with a laugh, “Joe Floyd went down to warn the players and he ended up a pine tree himself.”

Unfortunately, eight people were injured at the fair during the bull’s run and Bangor police eventually had to kill it to stop it.

An impromptu match from the mid-’70s stood out for Enman.

“Terry Abel used to hit the ball a long way, big hitter,” he said. “After the pro-am, he and [Maine legend] Jimmy Veno went out and played a match, $100 a hole starting on No. 10.

“On the 12th, Abel hit it right up the [middle] and Veno hit his in the trees to the right. Veno pitched out into the fairway, then knocked the next one in the cup, from about 140 yards away.”

For several years, Bangor High boys basketball and baseball coach Red Barry was the caddie master and he would hold a caddie school before the tournament for new caddies.

He would take the group out on the course to show them the trouble areas, where forecaddies should place themselves, etc.

He demonstrated that on the 15th hole, a dogleg with a blind tee shot that had to carry a pond or go left of it. One or more caddies in each group had to go ahead to see if any tee shots landed in the pond.

With his group standing at the appropriate vantage point, Barry said, “Let’s watch this group tee off.”

The first tee shot was fine, but the second was a line drive straight at the caddies. They jumped left or right, parting like the Red Sea to let the ball go through.

For tournament finishes, Bob Mattiace’s victory in 1987 would be hard to beat. His approach shot on the final hole (No. 9 as the nines are reversed for the final round) was atop the back mound behind the green. He had a delicate chip to a pin that was close to the back of the green.

He chipped it in to preserve his win.

For heartbreakers, there was 2002. That was the year 15-year-old Bangor amateur Jesse Speirs opened with a then-record 62 and was still leading by one on the last hole.

But Paul Dickinson of Apopka, Fla., made a 40-foot birdie putt and Speirs bogeyed as a large crowd of fans fell silent.

The future

As for the future, Enman hopes there will be another tournament, but it will be different.

“We’ve tossed some things out there to mull over,” said Enman.

“If we had a 36- or 54-hole amateur event run along the lines of this tournament, I think the community would support it,” he said.

“I think, with our experience [including assistant pro Rob Jarvis, who is the GBO committee head this year], we could do a nice job,” said Enman, “and if we do a nice job, I think it will be a popular tournament.”

It just won’t be the same for a lot of people, though, who would have liked to see the GBO keep going.

An interesting note to all of this is that the tournament was on the brink of cancellation in 1975 when the Bangor Chamber of Commerce decided not to hold it anymore.

Bangor City Manager Merle Goff spoke up, though, with some of the same arguments being made for it now.

“It seems to me with all of the expertise we have in this city in the area of promotion, there should be a way to permanently organize a group and take a long-range view with respect to a yearly tournament,” said Goff in a May 7, 1975, BDN article.

“My view is once these things go by the board, they have a way of never again reaching past potential,” Goff said in the same article.

A week later, Haffenreffer Beverage Co. of Brewer had signed on as major sponsor through Pepsi, and Owen Darling headed the new board of directors.

Johnston, and others, would like to see the same thing happen again.

“I think there’s room once a year for an event like this in your neighborhood,” said Johnston.

GBO Champs

2006 – *Marc Lawless, 200

2005 – Matt Donovan, 199

2004 – Matt Donovan, 198

2003 – William Link IV, 202

2002 – Paul Dickinson, 200

2001 – Jim Salinetti, 200

2000 – Billy Downes, 199

1999 – John Connelly, 202

1998 – *Joe Cioe, 206

1997 – John Hickson, 203

1996 – *Brian Lawton, 200

1995 – Eric Egloff, 201

1994 – Jason Widener, 202

1993 – Gus Ulrich, 199

1992 – *Jeff Julian, 206

1991 – Mike Colandro, 205

1990 – Andy Brock, 202

1989 – Gus Ulrich, 205

1988 – Richard Parker, 203

1987 – Bob Mattiace, 208

1986 – **Mike Baker, Marc Arnett, 136

1985 – Jeff Lewis, 203

1984 – Chip Hall, 206

1983 – *Jeff Grygiel, 207

1982 – Jeff Lewis, 207

1981 – Peter Teravainen, 208

1980 – Jack Ferenz, 205

1979 – a-Mark Plummer, 207

1978 – *Rocky Thompson, 213

1977 – Bruce Douglass, 207

1976 – Mike Buja, 206

1975 – Mike Shea, 207

1974 – Bruce Ashworth, 205

1973 – *Marion Heck, 207

1972 – *Paul Barkhouse, 209

1971 – Lanny Wadkins, 201

1970 – George Johnston, 207

1969 – Jerry Abbott, 209

1968 – Joel Goldstrand, 203

1967 – Ed Wiatr, 207

(a-amateur)

(*-won playoff)

(**-co-champs, tourney halted by rain)