Windsor teacher-caddie takes shot at Senior Open
There’s a too-obvious-to-miss “Tin Cup” quality to Dudley Logan’s quest.
Ron Shelton’s 1996 film, about a driving-range golf instructor named Roy McAvoy who qualifies for - and, improbably, threatens to win - the U.S. Open, is an homage to weekend warriors who dream of competing in the big arena against the greats of the game.
Unlike Kevin Costner’s lovable loser golf pro, though, Dudley Logan is not a character in a film script, even if his dream seems as fanciful as McAvoy’s.
A teaching pro at Windsor Golf Club, Logan is attempting to qualify for the U.S. Senior Open. He will compete Tuesday at Green Valley Country Club in Suisun, along with 89 other golfers, each hoping to earn a spot in the 36th U.S. Senior Open on June 25-28 at Del Paso Country Club in Sacramento.
The United States Golf Association received 2,445 entries for this year’s U.S. championship for male golfers aged 50-over. Logan sent in his application, along with the $175 fee.
Only a handful at Green Valley will qualify for the Open. Is Logan’s quest any more Quixotic than that of the other players?
Maybe. To start with, the 58-year-old Logan has not played a full 18 holes this year. By his own estimation, he hasn’t played a round of competitive golf this century.
“This is a shot in the dark,” he said recently by telephone from Shoal Creek Country Club in Birmingham, Ala., where he was caddying for longtime friend and Champions Tour pro Jeff Coston. “I haven’t played competitive golf in 15 years. I still haven’t played a round of golf this year. I’m more likely to shoot 80 than 70 (in the qualifying).”
At this point, you might think Logan threw away $175, about enough to play six rounds of golf at a local municipal course, or six holes at Pebble Beach Golf Links.
As they said about Roy McAvoy, is this guy for real?
“Absolutely, it’s a little crazy,” Logan admitted. “I have the $175 to lose. If it were $1,750, that would be really crazy.”
Logan, who played golf in high school growing up in Berkeley, and went to Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Okla., believes he has nothing to lose by going to the qualifying.
“My son (Sheldon) said, ‘You’ll go there and you’ll be so bad, you’ll want to practice,’?” said Logan, who lives in Santa Rosa.
It’s Logan’s sons who also get some credit for him finally taking a stab at competitive golf again. The three boys - Trenton, 24, a recent UC Berkeley graduate; Sheldon, 20, currently a junior at Cal; and Peyton, 17, a junior at Windsor High School - grew up with only rumors of dad’s skills on a golf course. To them, he’s the guy who gives lessons on the driving range at Windsor Golf Club, not the guy who toiled for 20 years on mini-tours in places like Waterloo, Iowa; Fairlee, Vt.; and Jupiter, Fla.
“They’ve heard about when I played; they’ve never seen me play in a tournament,” said Logan, who estimates that oldest son Trenton may have seen him compete but was too young to remember.
“I used to play,” Dudley Logan said. “It isn’t like I’m incapable of shooting a good score. I hit balls every day.”
Logan never walked away from the game. In addition to his work at Windsor GC, he has caddied off-and-on. He lugged a bag for Coston at the 2007 Senior PGA Championship; before that, for PGA Tour pro Duffy Waldorf during the first half of the 2000 season, including a stint inside the ropes at the Masters; and before that, for Tom Lehman. He caddied for Lehman as far back as 1990, and as recently as last month during the Legends of Golf in Ridgedale, Mo. He caddied for Coston again last week at the Senior PGA Championship in French Lick, Ind.
Coston had Logan as his caddie when he successfully made it through the PGA Tour qualifying school in 1987. Twenty years later, he turned to his old friend again for help for the Senior PGA at Kiawah Island, S.C.
After getting off to slow starts during a couple of his rounds, Coston, a club professional from Blaine, Wash., credited Logan with getting him back on track. “Dudley was great, he played a big part in helping me get my focus back after those early stumbles,” Coston wrote in 2007 in a blog for the website pga.com. “He would put his arm around me when I needed it, and give me a little kick in the pants when I needed it.”
With Logan’s assistance, Coston finished in a tie for 19th at the 2007 Senior PGA, the lowest placing by a club pro in a field filled with senior touring pros.
And Lehman credits Logan for giving him the confidence to continue when things looked bleak for him 25 years ago.
Lehman had failed at the tour qualifying school in 1988 and 1989. In 1990, he felt his game had improved but shot a 78 in the first round of the tour school, with Logan toting his bag and lending advice.
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