There’s a lot to be said for keeping it simple. That’s the first part of Pat O’Donnell’s golf mantra, and the second half is something he lived by on Tuesday in the opening round of the Golfweek Pacific Northwest Championship: Keep it in the fairway.
O’Donnell, 70, doesn’t stray much from the middle of the golf course. He knows he hit all 18 greens in an opening 5-under 67 at Wine Valley Golf Club in Walla Walla, Washington, and couldn’t remember missing any fairways.
“I’m not long but I’m not short,” O’Donnell said when asked to describe the strength of his game. He thinks his driving may be better now than it ever has been.
Scores: Golfweek PNW Senior Championship
O’Donnell is a born and bred Pacific Northwesterner and has the benefit this week of knowing the nuances of Wine Valley. The Happy Valley, Oregon, resident is not a regular on the national senior circuit, but his good friend Jim Pliska, owner of Wine Valley and a competitor in the tournament’s senior division, talked him into teeing it up at this week’s Golfweek event.
On Tuesday, O’Donnell’s 67 was not only good enough for the Super Senior division lead, it was the lowest score of any competitor in all four divisions (including Senior, Legends and Super Legends). O’Donnell is actually playing up despite the fact that he qualifies for the Legends division (for ages 70-74), but he leads Fran Matthias of Nampa, Idaho, by three shots.
“I don’t know where I belong in this thing,” he joked.
O’Donnell made five birdies in his first round, including an easy birdie at the par-4 17th after sticking his approach from 115 yards. He made another tap-in birdie on the par-5 closing hole.
He also made eagle on the par-5 third after reaching the green with a driver and a 6-iron – despite that being a hole he doesn’t normally go for – and then dropping a 35-foot putt.
“I had a good day plus it’s different than when I normally play here because usually it’s in April, which is cold and windy. This is warm and breezy,” he said. “The golf course is such a good golf course too, and it’s in good shape. The greens are holding which makes it particularly easier if it does get windy.”
One of the most challenging parts of Wine Valley is its enormous greens, but O’Donnell has a leg up here from experience.
“By playing here in the past, you kind of knows the dos and don’ts of the greens but you’re still not going to get a straight putt,” he said. “There’s always a break to them.”
In the Pacific Northwest, O’Donnell has a lot of this savvy. He took up the game at 10 years old at Columbia Edgewater Golf Club in Portland.
“They just put me to work out there because I was just irritating as a little kid,” he said. “They put me to work picking up range balls. Did that all the way through high school. Worked in the shop, ran the shop, turned pro for about three and a half years then decided, better get a real job.”
Before turning pro, O’Donnell qualified for the 1972 U.S. Amateur. Despite his short stint as a professional, O’Donnell never went to Q-School. He began work at the Boeing facility in Portland early in 1979 and retired in 2015.
During that time, O’Donnell drifted away from the game, taking nearly a decade off of competition, but returned shortly before turning 50. He has since qualified for the U.S. Senior Open three times and played nine U.S. Senior Amateurs, including the 2023 championship at Martis Camp in Truckee, California.
O’Donnell’s proudest moment competing in USGA events came in 2013, when, as an unheralded senior amateur, he played his way to the final match against Doug Hanzel (O’Donnell lost to Hanzel, 3 and 2).
“You can’t beat that when you go in with no expectations and you’re kind of a, ‘Who’s this guy?’” he said.
O’Donnell was still working at the Boeing plant then – a good-sized facility, he said, with nearly 1,500 people on the day shift.
“I swear half of them were tuned in on the internet watching that match,” he said. “It was really neat when I got back to work.”
O’Donnell may not frequent national senior events like the Golfweek circuit, but in this part of the country, he’s well-known. He was inducted into the Pacific Northwest Golf Association Hall of Fame in 2022 after compiling a jaw-dropping amateur resume that includes 11 Oregon Senior Men’s Stroke Play titles and six Oregon Senior Amateur titles. He has been named the Oregon Golf Association Men’s Player of the Year four times and the PNGA Senior Men’s Player of the Year three times.
At this point in his competitive career, O’Donnell mainly competes in Oregon Golf Association events – and mostly those designated for seniors after marveling at how far “the kids” now hit it. He’ll still try to get into the U.S. Senior Amateur, and plays a qualifier for this year’s tournament next week.
“The USGA stuff is all a bonus for me,” he said before joking, “I’m getting toward the end of the line.”
Jon Valuck of Scottsdale, Arizona had a 3-under 69 to lead the Senior division. Rick Corkill of Vancouver, Washington, and Greg Chianello of Portland, Oregon, are tied for second at 2 under. Hanzel, the 2013 U.S. Senior Amateur champion, is tied for fourth with three other players at 1 under.
Michael Johnson of Sammamish, Washington, leads the Legends division at 1 under and Greg Mokler of Timnath, Colorado, is atop the Super Legends division at 3 over.