Friday, Jun. 13, 2008

Congrats to an Indian Canyon alum

I was pleased to pick up the Herald this morning and see that Spokane native Tom Phillips, 55, had won the Pacific Northwest Golf Association Senior Men's Amateur on Thursday.

Phillips, who played golf at Stanford, survived a sudden-death playoff vs. Ellensburg's Keith Crimp. The three-day, 54-hole tournament was staged in Blaine at Loomis Trail and Semiahmoo.

Tom worked in the Indian Canyon pro shop for the late Bill Welch. If I recall correctly, my first year working for Bill (1976) was Tom's final season there. Since I was a high-school freshman who picked the driving range, I did Tom's bidding. That centered on making sure the bin was supplied with range balls Bill insisted on being striped — by hand, and often by me — with red paint.

I remember Tom as a well-spoken and rather serious character sporting an impressive red mustache. He was the first person I knew of who read Michael Murphy's Golf in the Kingdom. And Tom carried himself with a level of comportment that stood out at a public golf course, including a remarkable ability to walk without producing a crease in his shoes. Or so it seemed.

Tom also was one of the longest hitters in the Inland Empire in those days, and the violent force of his swing at impact would cause his head to snap back. One summer, Tom continued to play golf with his right foot in a walking cast.

Ultimately, he turned his college degrees into a quite successful career as a financial adviser, and my folks continue to credit Tom in part for their beautiful home and retirement in North Idaho. Tom himself has since retired, living in Seattle and producing quality golf.

On Wednesday night, Phillips went to sleep with a two-stroke lead. And that lead grew to five strokes with seven holes to play. However, according to the PNGA, a pulled muscle that Phillips suffered earlier in the week began to grab hold, and he bogeyed three of the last five holes to finish the 54-hole tournament at 6-over-par 222.

A quick Web search led me to this quote attributed to Phillips after he won the 2005 Oregon Senior Amateur, “No matter how far I might be up in a competition, I battle the fear of being run down from behind.”

The rules committee determined the sudden-death playoff would start at No. 17 and move to No. 18, if necessary. It was necessary, and the accounts of the playoff are not particularly glamorous.

Phillips and Crimp both missed the green in regulation on the 17th, but both got up and down for pars. On the 18th, Phillips hit his drive down the middle, but Crimp put his tee shot in the right fairway bunker. Crimp hooked his second shot out of the bunker into the lateral water hazard on the right side of the green. That allowed Phillips to make bogey and still win the championship.

His senior resume also includes a second-place finish at the 2007 Oregon Senior Open and a first at the 2004 Senior Oregon Open. Both of those tournaments were held at Wildhorse in Pendleton.