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.

“Shooting 78 in the first round is nearly the kiss of death,” Lehman wrote in a blog for the lifestory.org website. His struggles continued to the point where he was 10 over par through his first 25 holes.

“Logan,” Lehman wrote in the blog, “was telling me the whole time, ‘You’re a champion. You’ve got to play like a champion.’ I didn’t feel like a champion, but slowly things started to turn around.”

Lehman played 10 under par from that point, stuffing an 8-iron to within 2 feet at the final hole for birdie. Although he missed earning his tour card by one shot, he went on the Nationwide Tour in 1991 with renewed confidence. Lehman led the mini-tour in earnings to qualify for his PGA Tour card and has never looked back.

“With that one shot, I realized (Logan is) right. I am a champion. I do have what it takes. I do have the game that can win on the tour,” wrote Lehman, who has top-10s in all four major championships and won the 1996 British Open.

Logan met Lehman in the 1980s when they were competitors on the Space Coast Tour in Florida. The circuit was a shark tank of quality golf. Logan figures “about a third of the Champions Tour” today is made up of people he competed against in Florida.

“I played pro golf for 20 years, very poorly,” he said bluntly. “I played in almost every state. … I played state opens in Vermont, Maine, Nebraska, Oklahoma, wherever.

“I wasn’t any good. I was mostly a donator. On the Space Coast Tour, we were playing for our own money. There were guys that make money and guys that donate money.”

Logan was struggling on the circuit as a newlywed. He and his now ex-wife, Heather, met at a Bible study class 35 years ago in Rohnert Park. That was after he had taken a drive up Hwy. 101 and, noticing a golf course along the highway (then called Mountain Shadows; now Foxtail Golf Club), stopped in and asked if he could play and give lessons.

“I wasn’t a good husband,” Logan said. “She was awesome … she caddied for me everywhere. I was going to be a great golf pro and she was going to help me do that.”

But golf in Florida and most everywhere else went nowhere, and Dudley’s marriage produced three sons but did not last.

His one moment on the big stage was the 1984 Bing Crosby National Pro-Am, the annual winter “clambake” on the Monterey Peninsula. Logan shot a 72 to earn one of four spots in a qualifying event at Boundary Oaks Golf Club in Walnut Creek, then played a round each at Spyglass Hill, Cypress Point and Pebble Beach - shooting 83-83-78 for a 28-over-par 244 total - and missed the cut.

“That was my one highlight as a player,” Logan said. “I beat one player, Bob Tway, and that’s because he withdrew.” (Tway was disqualified after the second round, but Logan was dead-last among those who finished 54 holes.)

Logan also recalls that his pro-am partner’s last named was Robinson. “I felt terrible for him, ’cause it’s his one shot to play in the tournament, and he got paired with me.”

Not long after realizing that he wasn’t getting anywhere as a player, Logan turned to teaching and, occasionally, caddying. He returned to Pebble Beach in 1992 to tote the bag for good friend Tom Lehman in the U.S. Open. It turned out to be a better result than the 1990 tour school.

“Tom came in sixth (Lehman’s first top-10 in a major) and that’s how he got into the Masters,” Logan said. Lehman, by the way, tied for third in his first Masters in 1993. A year later, when he led after three rounds at Augusta National, and the assembled media wanted to know more about Lehman, the unheralded pro revisited the time his caddie gave him a pep talk at tour school.

“I had a caddie named Dudley Logan who helped me realize that I had a lot more ability than I’d given myself credit for,” Lehman said in 1994. “To me, that was the biggest hurdle. Coming to realize that I was a champion, so to speak.”

By then, Logan was living in Sonoma County, giving golf lessons and helping Heather, who lives in Rohnert Park, raise their three boys.

Now, all these years later, Logan is returning to the course as a competitor. It’s his “Tin Cup” moment.

And if, by some miracle, he qualifies on Tuesday?

That’s a win-win, Logan said.

His middle son, Sheldon, the one who challenged Dudley to try to qualify, has promised to caddy for him in Sacramento. And, he will get to rub elbows again - minus the caddie’s bib - with his old Space Coast Tour pals, guys like Tom Lehman, Mark Calcavecchia and Jeff Sluman, all majors winners.

“I’ll know all the guys there,” Logan added. “And they’ll say, ‘What are you doing here?’?”

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.

“Shooting 78 in the first round is nearly the kiss of death,” Lehman wrote in a blog for the lifestory.org website. His struggles continued to the point where he was 10 over par through his first 25 holes.

“Logan,” Lehman wrote in the blog, “was telling me the whole time, ‘You’re a champion. You’ve got to play like a champion.’ I didn’t feel like a champion, but slowly things started to turn around.”

Lehman played 10 under par from that point, stuffing an 8-iron to within 2 feet at the final hole for birdie. Although he missed earning his tour card by one shot, he went on the Nationwide Tour in 1991 with renewed confidence. Lehman led the mini-tour in earnings to qualify for his PGA Tour card and has never looked back.

“With that one shot, I realized (Logan is) right. I am a champion. I do have what it takes. I do have the game that can win on the tour,” wrote Lehman, who has top-10s in all four major championships and won the 1996 British Open.

Logan met Lehman in the 1980s when they were competitors on the Space Coast Tour in Florida. The circuit was a shark tank of quality golf. Logan figures “about a third of the Champions Tour” today is made up of people he competed against in Florida.

“I played pro golf for 20 years, very poorly,” he said bluntly. “I played in almost every state. … I played state opens in Vermont, Maine, Nebraska, Oklahoma, wherever.

“I wasn’t any good. I was mostly a donator. On the Space Coast Tour, we were playing for our own money. There were guys that make money and guys that donate money.”

Logan was struggling on the circuit as a newlywed. He and his now ex-wife, Heather, met at a Bible study class 35 years ago in Rohnert Park. That was after he had taken a drive up Hwy. 101 and, noticing a golf course along the highway (then called Mountain Shadows; now Foxtail Golf Club), stopped in and asked if he could play and give lessons.

“I wasn’t a good husband,” Logan said. “She was awesome … she caddied for me everywhere. I was going to be a great golf pro and she was going to help me do that.”

But golf in Florida and most everywhere else went nowhere, and Dudley’s marriage produced three sons but did not last.

His one moment on the big stage was the 1984 Bing Crosby National Pro-Am, the annual winter “clambake” on the Monterey Peninsula. Logan shot a 72 to earn one of four spots in a qualifying event at Boundary Oaks Golf Club in Walnut Creek, then played a round each at Spyglass Hill, Cypress Point and Pebble Beach - shooting 83-83-78 for a 28-over-par 244 total - and missed the cut.

“That was my one highlight as a player,” Logan said. “I beat one player, Bob Tway, and that’s because he withdrew.” (Tway was disqualified after the second round, but Logan was dead-last among those who finished 54 holes.)

Logan also recalls that his pro-am partner’s last named was Robinson. “I felt terrible for him, ’cause it’s his one shot to play in the tournament, and he got paired with me.”

Not long after realizing that he wasn’t getting anywhere as a player, Logan turned to teaching and, occasionally, caddying. He returned to Pebble Beach in 1992 to tote the bag for good friend Tom Lehman in the U.S. Open. It turned out to be a better result than the 1990 tour school.

“Tom came in sixth (Lehman’s first top-10 in a major) and that’s how he got into the Masters,” Logan said. Lehman, by the way, tied for third in his first Masters in 1993. A year later, when he led after three rounds at Augusta National, and the assembled media wanted to know more about Lehman, the unheralded pro revisited the time his caddie gave him a pep talk at tour school.

“I had a caddie named Dudley Logan who helped me realize that I had a lot more ability than I’d given myself credit for,” Lehman said in 1994. “To me, that was the biggest hurdle. Coming to realize that I was a champion, so to speak.”

By then, Logan was living in Sonoma County, giving golf lessons and helping Heather, who lives in Rohnert Park, raise their three boys.

Now, all these years later, Logan is returning to the course as a competitor. It’s his “Tin Cup” moment.

And if, by some miracle, he qualifies on Tuesday?

That’s a win-win, Logan said.

His middle son, Sheldon, the one who challenged Dudley to try to qualify, has promised to caddy for him in Sacramento. And, he will get to rub elbows again - minus the caddie’s bib - with his old Space Coast Tour pals, guys like Tom Lehman, Mark Calcavecchia and Jeff Sluman, all majors winners.

“I’ll know all the guys there,” Logan added. “And they’ll say, ‘What are you doing here?’?”