Forgive me father, for I have sinned.
The PGA of America held a major championship a mere 18.4 miles from my house…and I didn’t go. I thought about getting credentials a couple of times over the past few months, but I was too lazy to navigate the massively convoluted bureaucracy that is the PGA media relations department.
The superintendent had passes I could have used, but I couldn’t make the schedule work right to get over there. In short, I blew a chance to make this a firsthand commentary about how great the course was and how I personally witnessed what a terrific job the superintendent and his team did.
And you know what? That’s OK. The superintendent wasn’t looking for attention from me. He wasn’t looking for attention from anybody.
He’s Terry Bonar and he has nothing to prove to anyone.
If you don’t know Terry, feel free to click here for some background. Suffice to say that he’s:
A) A legend
B) Old school
C) Absolutely uninterested in self-promotion.
Bonar hosted the Senior PGA Championship at historic Canterbury Golf Club this past week. It was the capstone to a nearly half-century career at the club. It was also – other than various events at Firestone CC down in Akron – the first big golf tournament in the Cleveland area for years.
The local media was all over it, paying special attention to the presence of Greg Norman (who tanked – despite having Chrissy Evert following him around), other well-known old fart players and to Canterbury’s remarkable history and close connections to the roots of the senior circuit.
Terry’s name was barely mentioned in the media. Even The Plain-Dealer, which dedicated two or three sports section pages a day to the tournament, ran just a short item on Monday, after the event was over. Why?
First, the course was perfect and the weather was great. In short, conditions were a non-story – which was just the way Terry wanted it, by the way. Second, it’s the PGA of America’s event. No offense, but they probably weren’t putting the superintendent at the top of their PR priorities list. Third – and this is just my opinion – Terry was perfectly happy staying behind the scenes.
He did his job extremely well for one more big event in a long, successful career full of big events. I expect he was very satisfied with the success of his crew and the handful of nice comments from players and the PGA. But, I think I know one thing for sure: he’s more satisfied with the job he did every single day for 48 years keeping his members happy, running a great crew, training more than a dozen assistants who moved on to become superintendents, and stewarding a wonderful old piece of property for several generations of players.
Come December, I’m sure he’ll move into the non-superintendent world with the same sense of quiet confidence and friendly demeanor he brought to work at CGC for five decades. No hype…no fanfare…just Terry. Now that’s old school.
