honoluluadvertiser.com

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos

Log in | Become a member
The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Thursday, January 24, 2008

GOLF REPORT
A whole new ball game for Rhoden

Golf page
 •  The Honolulu Advertiser's Golf page
 •  Wie will be back for Fields
 •  Cheerful Funk on roll here
 •  Holes in One

By Bill Kwon

Hawaii news photo - The Honolulu Advertiser

Rick Rhoden

spacer spacer
2006 Hawai'i golf calendar
See a listing of all Hawai'i golf events this year.

Golf Tips logoGolf tips
Here are some tips to keep your game in tip-top shape!

Golf Guide logoAdvertiser golf guide
Here is a look at all of the golf courses in the state, with contact numbers, yardage and green fees.
spacer spacer

Rick Rhoden came a long way to get back here.

No, not the fact that he flew from Florida to try and qualify for the Turtle Bay Championship. (He made it, by the way, to join 77 others, including defending champion Fred Funk, in the Champions Tour's first full-field event of the season starting tomorrow).

And not because he survived a near-fatal auto crash with a runaway cement truck six years ago. Not even because of several surgeries as a youngster following a freak accident.

Rather, it's because of his first visit here in 1972 when he was a 19-year-old pitcher with the Albuquerque Dukes. He still remembers sneaking in and eating a bowl of saimin in the bullpen at the old Honolulu Stadium during Pacific Coast League baseball games against the Hawai'i Islanders.

"I remember they had veterans like John Werhas and Ray Oyler," recalled Rhoden, now 54, and looking forward to another playing field, the Palmer Course, at the Turtle Bay Resort on Oahu's North Shore.

The Triple-A Dukes had Ron Cey and Davey Lopes in the infield and they along with Rhoden and two other pitchers, Charlie Hough and Doug Rau, went on to lead the Los Angeles Dodgers to consecutive National League titles in 1977-78, only to lose to the New York Yankees both times.

"We didn't win either one of them. If we had won the World Series, it would have been a big deal for me," said Rhoden when asked about his biggest thrill in baseball.

Still, it was his only World Series appearance, coming in relief of Rau in Game 4 in 1977.

"I won 16 games and didn't get to start in the World Series. Back in those days, you don't argue with the manager," he said. Rhoden pitched seven innings and the only run he yielded was an opposite-field homer to Reggie Jackson, whose three home runs in the deciding sixth game led to the Yankees slugger to be forever known as "Mr. October."

"When I started, I thought if I could play 10 years, I'd be lucky. I wound up playing 15," said Rhoden, who won 151 games during a major league career that started with the Dodgers and ended, except for his final season at Houston in 1989, with the Yankees.

He played eight years — more than half his career — with the Pittsburgh Pirates. "(But) more people remember me playing for the Dodgers and Yankees," Rhoden said.

Growing up in Florida, Rhoden said golf was a natural sport to pursue after his baseball days were over. He used his signing money as the Dodgers' No. 1 pick out of high school in 1971 to buy his first set of clubs and played at the two Dodgertown golf courses in Vero Beach, Fla. during spring training.

He soon improved to a 2-handicap and started playing in celebrity golf tournaments, winning more than $2 million, in beating the likes of John Elway and Michael Jordan.

"Michael's OK. He might shoot 72 one day and then 82 the next," said Rhoden, who thinks that of all athletes, hockey players are the best golfers. "Same motion, swinging at that puck. And they get to play all summer, which is their offseason."

Named three times as the majors' best hitting pitcher, Rhoden didn't think his ability with the bat (a career nine home runs and 75 RBIs) was what really helped him in golf.

"Pitching, mentally, sets you up good for golf," he explained. "You throw maybe 90 pitches a game, not all of them good. You have to learn and make adjustments. And you have to have a short memory."

Rhoden realizes that success on the celebrity tour didn't automatically lead to success on the Champions Tour.

Rhoden's best year on the Champions Tour came in 2006 when he won $14,714 in 15 tournaments. And a tie for fifth in his very first senior event in the 2003 Allianz Championship is the best of his three career top-10 finishes.

"It's a different ball game," he says.

Shooting par might win on the celebrity event, but it isn't good enough against the world's best seniors. Especially in the Monday qualifying just to play in a tournament. Rhoden shot a 4-under 68, second best among the 13 qualifiers, who all had to better par to get be able to tee it up this weekend.

"I've been playing hurt for the last four years and the bad habits I developed because of that didn't help my swing," said Rhoden, especially since that horrific accident six years ago when a cement truck rear-ended his car, crushing it like a soda can. He also had surgery last year, limiting him to playing only two events, including the U.S. Senior Open.

"I don't think I'll ever be 100 percent," Rhoden added. "Back then I didn't know how to play well, but I was a much better ball striker."

But he's encouraged by his performance in the Q-School last year, winning medalist honors. Still, it's not that big a deal on the Champions Tour because it only gives you the opportunity to qualify on Mondays to get into tournaments.

"It is what it is. It's the rules," Rhoden said about the Q-School policy adopted by the senior tour two years ago.

At least now he feels his game is back, which is a good sign for the coming year. He might not be as good a ball-striker as he was, but it's a good thing he has a short memory.