My wife Shelly is quite a golfer. Fact is, if she had more time to play, she could be an extremely good golfer.

Thoughts today turn to a recent outing she had with one of her buddies, Marcia, who frequents the Penobscot Valley Country Club in Orono.

Every time I hear of a golf outing at the historic PVCC, I think back to the day in 1963 when longtime golfer Herbie Cowan, who was my Dad’s righthand man in the Hannaford Brothers’ Shop ‘n Save grocery business, took my father golfing.

Make no mistake about it: Herbie was quite a golfer. He was also the area’s sharpest dresser. Let’s just say he made the late Payne Stewart look conservative. My father had won a set of Spaulding clubs for selling the most cat food. Herb and his friends had finally coaxed Dad – a workaholic, if there ever was one – to take a leisurely stroll across the historic, scenic course in Orono, which opened in 1924.

As luck – beginners’ probably – would have it, Dad had a pretty good day. My father was a big man, a big, impatient man, and he announced at supper that night that I could find the clubs in the basement after our 6 p.m. meal was completed. He had his fill of golf.

“Why, Dad?” I asked.

“I don’t have time for that game. Four hours away from the office is simply too much for me.”

Well, I didn’t argue, and I began golfing almost immediately.

Other PVCC memories center around the times that Bruce Anderson, Bob Kelley, Dave Ouellette and I hooked up with notoriously good golfers. We enjoyed some rousing best-ball games in Orono with Bob Lahey, the former AD and coach at Old Town High School, Dave Ames, the longtime UMaine teacher, Mike Thurston, another Old Town school employee, and Marshall Soldati, as skilled a golfer as I have ever seen.

The eight of us often took our matches to another scenic venue, Bar Harbor’s beautiful Kebo Valley Golf Club. There, the competition was equally fierce. My, I miss those times.

I could never score at Penoby. Plus, the golfers I frequented that course with were long off the tee. My short game, one my few strengths, was negated by quick greens.

I still remember the day Arnold Palmer played an exhibition match at PVCC in 1971 and shot an incredible 65 on the par 72, 18-hole course. Wow, I’m thinking, I can’t imagine being that consistently good.

I was always a big Arnie fan. You could count me among the so-called Arnie’s Army that historic day in July.

Truth be known, I was a bigger Gary Player fan.

When I was a kid, playing and hacking at my golf ball at local courses, I dressed like the talented South African in solid black, Player’s traditional garb. I loved playing in the heat, and although I never acquired the big skills of the small golfer, I did have a lot of fun.

Shelly’s recent sojourns to the PVCC in Orono brought a host of memories back to me.

But it was my father’s lack of interest in the sport that took too long to play – his assessment – that really got me on the course the very first time.

30-Second Time Out

As the Boston Red Sox limp to the finish line, a finish which is starting to remind all of us of the 1978 season – sorry to bring back memories of the year the Sox blew a 14-game lead and lost a tie-breaking playoff game to New York – I couldn’t help thinking about all this talk about the definition of a so-called players’ manager, namely Sox skipper Terry Francona.

Here’s my own definition.

A players’ manager lets the players come and go as they please, act like they want to, dress as they want to, and set their own schedule for return from injury – Does Manny read the BDN?

In other words, a players’ manager wants everybody to love him.

Right now, I don’t.

BDN columnist Ron Brown, a retired high school basketball coach, can be reached at bdnsports@bangordailynews.net