But not everyone shares the love for the course, which is hosting this week’s 2024 U.S. Open. In fact, one major champion, Mark Calcavecchia, took to social media to insist that he thinks the course is overrated.
Calcavecchia, who won 13 times on the PGA Tour and four more times on the Champions Tour, won his only major title in the 1989 Open Championship at Royal Troon. He was supposed to have had his swan song at The Open in 2020 at Royal St. George’s but it was canceled due to the global pandemic. In 2021, he had back surgery and was unable to play. So, he wrote the Open committee a letter asking them to give him one final start at the 150th Open at age 62.
I’m ready for some abuse. Just gonna spit it out!! Pinehurst is such a cool area with great courses. #2 ain’t one of them. Most overrated course in the world!! Lemme have it!! But it’s true
His most memorable call? “Tiger Woods, sixth hole at the 2000 U.S. Open: My response was ‘just not a fair fight.'”
Roger Maltbie is a national treasure.
The veteran pro turned roving reporter for NBC/Golf Channel had his workload cut back significantly this year to our everlasting chagrin but he still is making a few appearances here and there, including a few weeks ago in Napa at the Fortinet Championship, not far from his old stomping grounds as a NorCal golfer.
Wine Country is where Golfweek caught up with Maltbie for an hour-long chat that was so entertaining we’ve decided to split it into a two-part Q&A. And here’s some more good news: You can get another fix of Maltbie and his unique brand of humor this week as he takes part in the broadcast of the PGA Tour’s Shriners Children’s Open in Las Vegas.
Calcavecchia soaked it all in, especially the warm send-off from the fans.
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland – Mark Calcavecchia said so long to The Old Course on his terms.
So what that he shot 83-82 to miss the cut by a mile. The 1989 Champion Golfer of the Year hit the opening tee shot of Friday’s second round at 6:35 a.m. local time, and strode across the Swilcan Bridge one last time. Making his 31st appearance in the world’s oldest championship, he conceded the moment got the better of him.
“I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I felt it. I felt the emotions,” Calcavecchia said. “Got a little mildly choked up.”
Calcavecchia, who won 13 times on the PGA Tour and four more times on the Champions Tour, was supposed to have had his swan song at The Open in 2020 at Royal St. George’s but it was canceled due to the global pandemic. In 2021, he had back surgery and was unable to play. So, he wrote the Open committee a letter asking them to give him one final start at the 150th Open at age 62.
“They got right back to me and said, ‘Let me bring it up to the championship committee.’ And not even a few weeks later, I got an email back. The decision by the 25 committee members was unanimous. ‘We’d love to have you play your last Open at St. Andrews. We love to take care of our past champions,’ ” Calcavecchia told PGA Tour.com earlier this year.
So, he brought his wife, son, daughter and son-in-law, the latter three making their first trip to the Home of Golf. His golf clubs? They didn’t arrive until Wednesday, so he played in the Celebration of Champions out of the bag of Ian Baker-Finch. Calcavecchia soaked it all in, especially the warm send-off from the fans.
“It wouldn’t have mattered if I shot a pair of 75s or a pair of 85s, which I nearly did. It was about playing one more, my last one here at the home of golf, which is really cool to be able to end it here,” he said.
A thousand official starts across the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions is definitely deserving of a first-tee cake.
A thousand official starts across the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions is definitely deserving of a first-tee cake.
On Friday, which happened to be his wife Brenda’s birthday, Mark Calcavecchia became the 23rd golfer to do so when he teed off at this week’s ClubCorp Classic near Dallas. PGA Tour Champions President Miller Brady did the honors of presenting the cake to Calcavecchia, who 40 years ago made his Tour debut.
“Does that mean I get to tee off up there?” Calcavecchia wondered aloud. “I get to play the Super Seniors tees.”
How’d it feel to hit that tee shot, he was asked? “Like I’d done it 1,000 times before,” he deadpanned.
Calcavecchia won 13 times, most notably the 1989 British Open, and four more times on the Champions Tour. Besides being a darn-good golfer, the 61-year-old “Calc” is an underrated follow on Twitter. He participated in a wide-ranging Q&A with PGA Tour.com earlier this week (and well worth a full read) that included some great nuggets, including that he first picked up a club “maybe around 5 years old,” and learned the game originally in his native Nebraska at Cedar View Country Club.
“The trees have grown in. It’s beautiful now. And you drive up Calcavecchia Drive to get there,” he said.
1982: Joins @PGATOUR 2022: Makes 1,000th start @MarkCalc will become the 23rd player to make 1,000 TOUR-sanctioned starts when he tees it up @ClubCorpClassic this week.
On his family’s move to Florida: “My father slipped on a patch of ice in the winter of ’72. He broke his elbow or his arm or something or other, and he said, ‘That’s it. That’s the last winter we’re spending here.’
“We lived right across Highway 1 from the 14th green at North Palm Beach Country Club. I’d take my shag bag after dinner, go to the 14th green and just hit bunker shots.”
On his maiden victory by three strokes at the 1986 Southwest Classic: “We play a practice round in Abilene, Texas; it’s blowing about 30, and I had four three-putts on the front nine. I had only brought one putter, my normal old (Ping) Anser, and I said, ‘I’m going in the pro shop to buy the ugliest putter I can find.’ I went through the locker room to go to the bathroom and the Titleist guy had put about 20 putters out in the locker room. Then I saw it, the big old black-headed putter called the Dead Center Titleist putter. I said, ‘This is the ugliest thing I can find. Can I try this for the back nine?’ And I went out and made everything, shot like 31 and took everybody’s money and then ended up winning the tournament with it. I still have that putter to this day.
“The winner’s check was $72,000. That’s when they gave us the big cardboard checks. I’m flying to West Palm from Dallas through Atlanta, and I’m dragging around this giant check. Everybody looked at me like I was a complete idiot. But I didn’t care. I was pretty happy. Pretty sure I still have the check in a storage shed somewhere.”
On where he keeps his Claret Jug from winning the 1989 Open: “It’s by my TV on the fourth shelf of this wall unit we built. I look at it every day. I need to take it down and get it shined. We had it shined up a couple years ago, so it looked like it was brand new. I can always put a little elbow grease into it with some silver polish, but it’s easier letting the jeweler do it. It sure looks pretty when it’s shiny.”
On his plans to take one final spin at the 150th Open in July: “My last Open (at age 60) was supposed to be two years ago at Royal St. George’s, and it was canceled because of COVID. Last year, I couldn’t play because I’d had back surgery. So I wrote a long letter in April when I knew I wouldn’t be able to play and I asked the Open committee to consider letting me play at St. Andrews, make it my last Open. They got right back to me and said, ‘Let me bring it up to the championship committee.’ And not even a few weeks later, I got an email back. The decision by the 25 committee members was unanimous. ‘We’d love to have you play your last Open at St Andrews. We love to take care of our past champions.’
“My daughter and my son will be coming, and my wife, Brenda, of course. And my goal is to make the cut … I really think I can make the cut. Either way, it’s going to be a blast.”
Assuming he was destined for a DQ, Garboski shook the hands of his playing partners and awaited his fate.
Rick Garboski was enjoying his time at the Hoag Classic on the PGA Tour Champions, so much so that he was happily offering up souvenirs for young fans who were watching him practice.
A Monday qualifier and local pro making his Champions debut, Garboski was playing with veteran Mark Calcavecchia during Saturday’s round when he dropped two in the drink at Newport Beach Country Club.
That’s when he went into his bag only to realize he’d given away a few too many keepsakes — it was empty.
Assuming his first PGA Tour Champions start was destined for a DQ, Garboski shook the hands of his playing partners and awaited his fate.
However, a rules official said organizers could dispatch someone to his locker to retrieve more balls. A penalty resulted for playing a different ball, and then another came as he was held back a group.
Calcavecchia said on Twitter it was the first time he’d seen anything like it. Garboski called it a “total rookie move.”
Calc. Can’t argue – it’s freaking hilarious. Total rookie move on my part. Bad combo of trying to keep a light bag – along with giving too many balls away to kids along the way. No such thing as bad publicity, right? 😜
Garboski finished the round, carding an ugly 80, but rallied on Sunday with a 74 to finish one spot out of last — ahead of Calcavecchia.
“It’s an unfortunate error, and I’m going to laugh about it,” Garboski said. “I’m just so thankful that the Tour officials here figured out a way for me to actually finish. I didn’t mind the penalties, because I just wanted to be able to play.”
Here’s how reacted to the penalty.
Rick Garboski ran out of golf balls on his 13th hole.
He's never been so happy to take three penalty strokes.
Here was the statement from the PGA Tour Champions Rules Committee:
“Rick Garboski hit his third shot in the penalty area on the par-3 fourth hole during Round 2 of the Hoag Classic and was unable to retrieve his ball. He realized that he had no more balls of the same brand and model as used at the start of his round to satisfy the One Ball Rule that was in effect. Garboski asked for a ruling and acquired another brand/model of ball to complete the fourth hole. The Rules Official clarified that Garboski would receive the general penalty for a breach of the One Ball Rule during play of the fourth hole and needed to play the brand/model of ball used at the start of his round from the next teeing area to avoid being disqualified. Garboski had balls of the same brand/model available off the course and they were immediately brought to him while he completed the fourth hole. Unfortunately, Garboski had to unreasonably delay play from the fifth tee for a short period of time while the balls arrived and was assessed a further one-stroke penalty under Rule 5.6a. Rather than delay the other two players in Garboski’s original group, a Rules Official gave approval for him to wait for and then join the group of two players playing immediately behind him to complete the remainder of the round.”
No. 17 at Kiawah Island is a long (like, uber-long) par 3 over water. Here’s what players had to say early week.
KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. – Off in the distance some 230 yards is a sliver of emerald safety that gives slight comfort to those who will be staring down potential tragedy during the 103rd playing of the PGA Championship.
It’s the putting surface at the end of the par-3 17th hole on The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, Pete Dye’s masterpiece hard by the Atlantic that, while eye-popping, is a wind-swept, treacherous walk on a tightrope, or as Lee Westwood said of the layout, it’s a thrills-and-spills kind of place.
This week, the course could play out to 7,876 yards, making it the longest in major championship history by more than 100 yards, and the 230 yards on the penultimate hole protected by water on the right and two deep waste areas that look like bunkers on the left could prove the most pivotal of all.
“Seventeen is the ultimate test of nerve,” 2013 Masters champion Adam Scott said. “It doesn’t matter when you’re playing it. If it’s three weeks ago or this Sunday coming down the stretch, it’s a long par 3 over water.
“I don’t know how holes get more difficult than that.”
The Puttview yardage book for Kiawah Island Golf Resort’s Ocean Course (Courtesy of Puttview)
If blame is to be assigned for the cruel outcomes over the years on the 17th, it would be directed toward Alice Dye, an accomplished architect herself and a top golfer who always had her husband’s ear. It was her idea as the course was nearing completion for the 1991 Ryder Cup to add the watery graveyard.
“There wasn’t going to be a lake on the 17th but Alice felt we needed a dramatic element at this point,” Dye wrote in his autobiography. “Since players of Ryder Cup caliber can handle bunker shots with ease, to make a realistic challenge, we dug an eight-acre lake that stretches from the tee to the offset green, which runs away from the player diagonally to the right.”
The hole exploded in the minds of golf fans when The Ocean Course made its tournament debut in the 1991 Ryder Cup dubbed the “War by the Shore.” It played out like a dark alley in a horror flick as players fell victim to the confrontation time and time again.
Johnny Miller said on the telecast that year the hole was so intimidating that a player could choke while playing a practice round alone. David Feherty, who closed out Payne Stewart in Ryder Cup singles play on the 17th, said he’d never seen anything like it.
“The hardest hole in the history of the universe,” Feherty said of the 1991 version of the 17th. “It was 270 yards and nowhere to go. Water to the right and these mine shafts on the left they called bunkers.”
Ian Woosnam of the European team plays out of the bunker on the 17th hole during the Final Day Singles of the 1991 Ryder Cup at Kiawah Island in South Carolina. (Photo: Stephen Munday /Allsport)
Mark Calcavecchia had one of golf’s infamous meltdowns in his crucial singles match against Colin Montgomerie. Calcavecchia was 4 up with four holes to play but lost the 15th and 16th. He looked safe to win after Montgomerie hit his tee shot on 17 into the water.
Calcavecchia, however, hit a shank into the lake and then missed a 3-footer for bogey to lose the hole. He also lost the 18th and only earned a halve. Thinking he cost the U.S. victory, he went to the beach and broke down in tears, then started hyperventilating and needed medical attention. His health improved as the U.S. won the match.
Twenty-one years later, The Ocean Course held its first major with the 2012 PGA Championship and the par-3 17th wasn’t much easier. The field averaged 3.303 strokes on the hole that week, making nearly as many double bogeys or worse (28) than birdies (31). It ranked in the top-10 of most difficult par-3s that year on the PGA Tour.
And now it’s making another start turn this week.
Expect more carnage.
Well, maybe not from Wyndham Clark. The first alternate who got into the field Monday when 1998 and 2004 PGA champion Vijay Singh withdrew, had never seen the course before playing a Tuesday practice round. At the 17th, he took out his 4-iron and sent the ball skyward and made a hole in one.
As for most all others, the 17th was not kind.
Using a 2-iron on Tuesday, world No. 4 Xander Schauffele hit a tee shot that found the water. Using the same 2-iron, he hit his next tee shot to 2 feet.
“I think that kind of sums up the hole in all honesty,” he said. “When you’re hitting a long iron into wind and it’s struck properly, it should hold its line and its flight. If you don’t, it’s going to go way offline and not hold its flight.
“You’ve really got to muster up some courage coming down the stretch and depending on where they put that tee box, it’s going to be really tricky.”
World No. 2 Justin Thomas took to Twitter and Instagram to show his go at 17.
“220 hole, 198 cover, into a 15ish mph wind … what y’all hitting? I flighted hold cut 4 iron … into the water. It looked pretty though!” he wrote with the accompanying video documenting the shot.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CO_Jh5TBlDk/
World No. 3 Jon Rahm muscled up when he got to the 17th.
“I smoked a 2-iron to just carry it over the middle of the green over the water,” he said. “Extremely difficult. That’s all I can say. Any time you have 230 yards into the wind over water into a narrow target, it’s just not easy.
“I’m hoping we don’t play it back there every day.”
So does Kevin Kisner.
“Lord hope that we’re going to play a tee up,” Kevin Kisner said. “(Tuesday) we played it at 202 from the front edge of the back box, so we were trying to hit a 235-yard shot over water to an area about 13 yards wide.
“I tried to hit a 7-wood; was unsuccessful. That’s not a very easy shot into the wind. Depending on where they play it and where the flag is, I think you have a range (of club selection) from 5-iron to 3-wood.
“Sounds fun, doesn’t it?”
The 17th is part of a closing stretch that’s just downright mean – the 466-yard, par-4 15th; the 608-yard, par-5 16th; the 17th; and the 505-yard, par-4 18th. It’s an unsympathetic finish which demands the winner to call on all his talents.
Which is the way it should be, said European Ryder Cup captain Padraig Harrington, who won the 1997 World Cup here with Paul McGinley.
“If you want to hit the green on 17, you’ve got to be brave,” said Harrington, who hit 5-wood into the wind on Tuesday at the 17th. “There are a lot of great holes here. I do agree if I was designing the golf course, a championship golf course, I would have a real stern test at the end because you want a true winner, and a true winner is going to have to hit the shots at the end and really take them on.
“You can’t have a soft finish in any shape or form. Nobody would have won this tournament until they’re through the 71st hole, that’s for sure.”
Mark Calcavecchia is still trying to fully recover his strength after contracting the coronavirus while on vacation in his native Nebraska.
BOCA RATON, Florida — COVID-19 has had a dramatic impact on the PGA Tour Champions, and no one knows that better than Mark Calcavecchia.
Like the other 81 players 50 and older who are competing this week in the TimberTech Championship, Calcavecchia has adjusted to not playing in front of fans and having to social distance from the parking lot to the clubhouse to the practice range to the golf course.
But as Calcavecchia, 60, of Jupiter, prepares for the event, which is Friday through Sunday at The Old Course at Broken Sound, he’s still trying to fully recover his strength after contracting the coronavirus in September while on vacation in his native Nebraska.
“I feel good now,” said Calcavecchia, who won this tournament when it was called the Boca Raton Championship in 2018. “After I was sick, I was pretty weak for two or three weeks and my back hurt, so I still had kind of lingering effects from the aches and pains of it.
“Then sure enough, in Cary, North Carolina, the last day (of the SAS Championship on Oct. 11), back spasms grabbed me right in the middle of my back and buckled my legs and I went down. I couldn’t even make another swing.”
Calcavecchia, whose wife and caddie, Brenda, has consistently tested negative for the virus, headed to Virginia for the next tournament, but his back did not improve. They returned to Florida, where Calcavecchia’s back doctor gave him “a nice little injection in the right spot, so I feel really good now. We’ll see how long it lasts.”
He said his back felt good during Wednesday’s pro-am, adding that the course played long for him. One of the shorter hitters on the senior tour given his back and COVID issues, Calcavecchia said he hit some approach shots that he’s not used to hitting, such as 5-irons to greens where he would normally hit 8- or 9-irons.
The pandemic has forced players to get used to not having fans, and grandstands, at their tournaments. That changes the strategy on holes such as the par-5 18th. Many players went for the green in two knowing that if they ended up against the grandstand, they received a free drop and a chip that often resulted in an easy birdie. A second shot like that now could end up in a pond behind the green.
“Eighteen has a whole different look to it,” Calcavecchia said. “It looks weird with no stands, or fans.”
Added Jesper Parnevik, “The thing we miss are fans. That’s the saddest part I would say. It’s kind of lonely out there.”
Dudley Hart can relate to that. He made a hole-in-one at the tour’s first tournament back after the shutdown to a pin hidden from the tee. His only clue that he hit a great shot was a marshal waving his arm.
“That kind of stuff is different, but I’m just glad we’re out playing,” Hart said.
COVID had an impact on Ken Duke of Stuart, who canceled his annual charity golf tournament. Although the Champions Tour has had a safe season since play resumed on July 31 after nearly a five-month closure, Duke didn’t want to take any chances with his Ken Duke & Friends Celebrity Pro-Am, which was scheduled for this past weekend at Floridian National Golf Club in Palm City.
“It was the right thing to do with people traveling from all over the United States,” Duke said, noting that his family has been safe and healthy. “We just didn’t need any kind of spike at our event and get negative publicity from that. We’ve done pretty well the last four years, raising a lot of money for a lot of different charities, so we thought it was the best thing to do.”
David Frost said COVID has had some benefits and some drawbacks. He took advantage of the time off to spend three months at home in Delray Beach and expand his wine business. The highly regarded wines from his vineyard in South Africa are sold at Trader Joe’s and online at frostwine.com.
“I’ve never really been home in 35 years for that amount of time. I’ve traveled non-stop since 1982,” he said. “So it was nice to have a break like that. However, when I came back, my golf game completely sucked.”
During that break, Frost also posted a bunch of Facebook Live videos on his David Frost Golf page.
“I have received so much support over the last 30 years playing golf, so I think it was my time to spread the word that everybody should be patient, stay safe, stay at home as much as possible,” he said. “In a short while, this thing will be over and then we can get back to normal again.”
Frost and his family have been safe and COVID-free. He said his only close friend to get COVID was President Donald Trump.
Parnevik said COVID had little effect on him and his family because they went to his native Sweden in mid-April and stayed there for the summer.
“We never had a lockdown,” he said. “Bars, restaurants, schools, everything was open. They never shut down. My kids thought that was great, because we went from Florida lockdown where we barely stuck our heads out of the window because we were scared of COVID to being in Sweden where we did pretty much normal things.”
For Hart, of Naples, the COVID shutdown came at the perfect time: He had just had surgery on his thumb.
“I couldn’t practice or play,” Hart said. “My son’s a golfer, he’s a freshman on the golf team at the University of Florida. So I was out with him messing around all the time, which at least got me out of the house and got me out of my wife’s hair.”
Hart’s family did have some COVID close calls. His son’s roommate at Florida had COVID, but he did not contract it. Neither did his daughter, whose roommate at the University of Tampa got the virus.
“We’ve done well,” he said. “Everyone’s been pretty smart about it. Not paranoid. I feel like there’s a big difference between that. I don’t stress about getting it, but I’m going to try to do everything I can to be smart. If I go in somewhere, I’m going to put a mask on and wash my hands.
“I still try to live my life as normal as I can and I’m not locking myself in my house in fear, which isn’t safe for your sanity.”
Mark Calcavecchia hopes he’s on the mend, but he wouldn’t wish COVID-19 on anyone. The PGA Tour Champions veteran and former British Open champion tested positive for coronavirus on Sunday, and drove his 45-foot Tiffin motor coach 1,800 miles from …
Mark Calcavecchia hopes he’s on the mend, but he wouldn’t wish COVID-19 on anyone. The PGA Tour Champions veteran and former British Open champion tested positive for coronavirus on Sunday, and drove his 45-foot Tiffin motor coach 1,800 miles from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, site of this week’s Sanford International, to his home in South Florida.
“Driving with COVID wasn’t that much fun,” Calcavecchia said after being reached via telephone. “Somehow I did it in 3 ½ days, but when I got home everything just kind of fell apart.”
Calcavecchia, 60, played in the Charles Schwab Series at Ozarks National event and finished T-15, his best result of the season. He and wife Brenda drove to Omaha, Nebraska, for a couple of days, where he conducted a clinic for members at The Players Club on Sept. 4. Longtime caddie Troy Martin, and his wife, Mary, are members there and 40-50 people attended with social distancing practices in place, Calcavecchia said. Attendees wore masks, but two days later, Martin and his wife, Mary, tested positive after she suffered from headaches.
Update from Covid-19 Ville. This shit is very real! And it sucks. I’ve never had so many symptoms hit me all at the same time. I keep moving around the house trying to escape it. Please be safe and wear ur mask. I thought I was but with this evil shit you never know 🤬🤬🤬🤬
Calcavecchia continued on where he played Sand Hills (“my favorite”), The Prairie Club and Dismal River with fellow pro Lee Janzen, who tested negative.
“I sent a spit-test in nine days ago and it came up positive. I went to Sioux Falls and the test was positive on Sunday. I started feeling crappy on Sunday,” Calcavecchia said.
Wife Brenda tested negative three times. Calcavecchia said he’s been taking Tylenol for his fever, which he said hasn’t gotten worse than 101.
“I had a little runny nose at first and just thought it was allergies,” he said. “When the fever goes away for awhile I feel OK. It’s aches and pains, can’t get comfortable, the whole nine yards.”
He also tweeted: “I’ve never had so many symptoms hit me all at the same time.”
Calcavecchia hopes that he will only have miss this week’s event and the Purse Insurance Open at Pebble Beach next week. The Champions Tour takes a two-week break before returning for its final four events of the season.
On Saturday, PGA Tour pro Kevin Kisner apologized for an insensitive tweet in response to a post by former NBA player Rex Chapman.
The original tweet referenced that a friend’s parents died from COVID-19 and that Chapman’s family also had been personally affected by the pandemic. He expressed his frustration with President Donald Trump’s handling of COVID-19.
Kisner responded, saying, “Guess they can’t follow the guidelines.”
After social media erupted against him, Kisner deleted the tweet and posted an apology.
Earlier this morning, I made a reckless comment. I diminished the real experience of pain and loss suffered by many during the pandemic. I am not without empathy, but I certainly exercised poor judgement. I apologize to @RexChapman and anyone else that was hurt by my comment.
When asked what he thought about Kisner’s comment, Calcavecchia said, “To each their own. I don’t know him, but until you have it you shouldn’t really say anything.”
Mark Calcavecchia doesn’t understand why more players don’t travel to tournaments by RV, especially during the pandemic.
Brenda Calcavecchia wants to convert other professional golfers to the RV lifestyle during the COVID-19 pandemic.
She and husband Mark can relax in recliners in front of a big-screen TV with a stocked Sub-Zero wine cooler and their three dogs close by. They explore new places as they travel in between tournaments. They park in Walmart lots, with Columbia, South Carolina, their stop on Sunday night as they drove from Jupiter, Florida, to Akron, Ohio, for this week’s Bridgestone Senior Players Championship.
Mark’s longtime caddie, Brenda believes the mode of transportation is perfect for the virtually inseparable couple.
Except of course, for that harrowing stretch of Interstate 77 through West Virginia, which Mark negotiated Monday in the new Tiffin Zephyr motorhome they picked up five days before.
“It’s awful. The crazy thing is you have to pay to drive that road and it’s no better; I don’t know what they’re doing with the money,” Brenda said Thursday. The native of Bexley, Ohio, is familiar with the highway because her parents often took her to Hilton Head and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, as a kid.
“Here we are in this new RV and all I can think about is everything in the entire place falling apart. It shakes … every bump.
“I think we got out OK. A few screws. …”
Calcavecchia is one of four Bridgestone competitors who arrived in RVs. So, too, did John Daly, Woody Austin and Tim Petrovic. Mark and Brenda have been crossing the country on the Champions Tour this way for 10 years.
“I can’t believe we didn’t do it sooner,” she said after Mark opened with a 6-over 76 Thursday at Firestone Country Club, eight shots off the lead. “I’ve been a germaphobe before it was in style. I didn’t like hotels, I don’t like flying, I don’t like being away from my dogs.
“You close the shades, we don’t know where we are. Once you shut ’em, you’re in this fantastic, comfortable space that’s all yours.”
With golfers wary of hotels and flying commercial, Brenda is baffled why more haven’t gone this route. At the moment the Calcavecchias have two buses, with their Prevost motorhome up for sale after their renter decided to buy his own.
“I think some guys are maybe nervous to even drive,” Brenda said. “I think they think you have to have a [commercial driver’s license]. You can just drive off the parking lot with one.
“I can’t believe more people don’t do this, especially on the regular tour. Those guys can afford to have somebody drive it for ’em, set it up, half of ’em fly private. Why would you want to sit in a hotel because we’re not allowed out? I can’t imagine not being in this; I don’t know what we would have done.”
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During the lockdown, Brenda said she saw Mark less than usual, as he played golf while she renovated a house to flip. She obtained her real estate license last year.
They also participated in Caddies for a Cause, which Brenda said reached its goal of raising $100,000 for the 75 Champions Tour caddies unemployed with tournaments canceled by the pandemic. Pros donated foursomes, others sent memorabilia for auction, which included a Masters pin flag from two-time champion Bernhard Langer.
Now back on the road, Brenda didn’t go to Grand Blanc, Michigan, two weeks ago for the Ally Challenge, the first since the Champions Tour restart. So her COVID-19 test in Akron was her first.
“I was kind of nervous, but I’ve had a flu swab before so I thought ‘It can’t be too bad,’” she said. “It’s not like it’s a 20-minute process, but it still hurts. I think he opened up my deviated septum — I’m not trying to be funny — because I can breathe better now. But I understand and I think the tour has done an amazing job trying to help us be safe.”
The Calcavecchias had hoped to eat dinner at the Diamond Grille, but tour protocols do not allow indoor dining. Nor can they get carryout from Hyde Park Prime Steakhouse, with the Akron location now permanently closed. That’s where they went on their first date during the 2001 NEC Invitational after meeting at the Memorial Tournament. Brenda attended Ohio State and graduated from Franklin University.
Brenda may not be able to convince Mark’s peers to convert to RV travel, but she thinks it’s perfect for them, even before the pandemic. But she admits their adventure has its stressful moments.
“There’s always something new that happens. We’ve become quite the mechanics,” she said. “You think you’ve fixed everything that can happen and something new always comes up.”
Like a familiar, yet frightening stretch of Interstate 77.
