Quigley completing 198th tourney in a row
By Bill Kwon
Special to The Advertiser
KAHUKU — When it comes to streaks, Dana Quigley is to the Senior PGA what De La Salle is to high school football and Cal Ripken is to baseball.
Quigley, 55, is playing in his 198th consecutive Senior PGA Tour event, a record run that began when he won his first tournament on Aug. 10, 1997.
Quigley remembers telling the media then they can tell Bruce Summerhays' that his reign as the senior tour's iron man was over. "Meet the new Iron Man of the tour," he told them.
He is 32 for 32 tournaments this year, along with Mike McCullough, Walter Hall and Ed Dougherty.
"I knew being exempt, I would be playing every tournament I can. I was going to play golf somewhere anyway," said Quigley, who is tied for 10th with a 36-hole total of 141 going into today's final round of the Turtle Bay Championship.
Setting an endurance record has nothing to do with his streak, according to Quigley, a club pro in Rhode Island for 13 years before joining the Senior Tour in 1997.
"Playing golf is what I love to do. I've played golf probably every day of my life anyway, so it's no big deal. I can't get enough," said
Quigley has earned $7.4 million on the Senior Tour.
"It's not like I have to get up in the morning and push myself to go to the golf course. When I go to bed at night, I'm thinking about where I'm going and where I'm playing the next day."
Back home, which is now West Palm Beach, Fla., he's always the first guy on the course where he plays, Jack Nicklaus' 36-hole Bear Lakes complex.
"I tell the members I play with, if they're not there by 7:15 in the morning, I'm gone," he said. "Golf. It's my only life. I don't have any other life."
Actually, Quigley does. He's married with a daughter and son. Quigley's wife, Angie also golfs, as does his teen-aged son, Devon.
Quigley's streak has had only one close call.
In 1999, he played a tournament in Nashville on the same day that his daughter, Nicole, graduated from high school in Rhode Island.
"I played the first round, chartered a plane, flew to the graduation to surprise her and flew back to the tournament. My wife came up with the idea. It cost $7,500, and in those days I didn't have that kind of money. But it was worth it."
Nicole will be graduating soon from college. Quigley already told her that rather than be at the ceremonies, he will give her the money he would have spent chartering a flight as a graduation gift. "So she'll get around $10,000, he said.
Quigley said he is lucky that he has never been injury prone.
What does he do to stay in shape?
"Not a thing. I don't work out a single day. But I get a lot of massage. My wife's a massage therapist," he said.
He attributes his good health to playing golf. "It's pretty hard to hurt something when that's all you do," Quigley said. "I think playing golf every day helps me."
