If Francis Ouimet can do it, he thought, so can I.
Overcome with euphoria two years ago after watching “The Greatest Game Ever Played,” the movie about 20-year-old amateur Francis Ouimet's shocking victory over seasoned pros in the 1913 U.S. Open, Lenny Pechner had a vision.
CHARLIE NEUMAN / Union-Tribune
Lenny Pechner, seen here with his wife, Meagan, endured a nightmarish outing during qualifying for the U.S. Open sectionals.
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He could win the U.S. Open
From that day on, the 47-year-old accountant from Oceanside said he was driven with an obsession to qualify for the 2008 U.S. Open, being staged for the first time just down the freeway at Torrey Pines.
At his home course, Arrowood Golf Club, he carried his bag up to 36 holes a day, five days a week. He saw a sports psychologist, pored over golf books, watched the Golf Channel religiously.
“As much as anybody might laugh,” Pechner said, “I saw myself walking up the 18th hole, kicking Tiger's (tail). If you don't believe it can happen, it's not going to happen.”
What actually happened, however, is that Pechner's lofty, if not naive, goals met golf's undeniable truth last week on a cool, blustery Monday at Fairbanks Ranch Country Club: You can dream all that you desire, but your golf game is your reality.
With his self-taught swing, Pechner found all of the rough, water and sand that Fairbanks could offer. He suffered numerous penalty strokes, losing his ball in the rough a couple times on one hole and splashing three consecutive shots into the water on his finishing hole. Pechner even took a two-stroke penalty for teeing up his ball inches in front of the tee markers.
And when he was done, exhausted, shaken and embarrassed, Pechner signed his scorecard for 34-over-par 106 and turned it in to finish last, 12 shots behind the next-worst posted score. His scorecard included a 9, an 8 and four 7s.
Six players qualified for the Open sectionals from Fairbanks with a score no worse than 71. The medalist for the day, former La Costa Canyon and UCLA player Peter Campbell, shot 68.
“I was devastated,” Pechner said. “I wanted to crawl into a hole. I didn't want my family to see me, my friends to see me. It's hard talking about it. I have never been so disappointed in my play, ever.
“It was just bad golf. I wish there was something better I could say. It's bad golf.”
At home that night, an emotional Pechner was consoled by his 24-year-old wife, Meagan, an avid golfer. Just that evening, the couple learned they had not been selected for an upcoming couples version of the Golf Channel's “Big Break.”
“He put so much hard work and determination into it,” Meagan said. “It's hard to see someone's dreams crushed like that.”
The U.S. Open is golf's biggest tease because it gives any player with $150 and an established 1.4 handicap or lower the hope that he or she can qualify for a 108-year-old major championship whose winner earns instant immortality and more than $1 million.
One longtime USGA official howls with laughter as he tells the story of the guy who called Golf House and said, “I'm going to win the Open – once I get out of jail!” A caddie once called and protested, “I can't believe you won't let my guy qualify; he's a strong 5 (handicap)!”
The problem is that most golfers have no realistic idea of the skill it takes to qualify for or play in the Open, so the 111 local qualifying tournaments are littered with dreamers. One guy in Florida last week posted a 109, another in Northern California signed for a 108. There were three scores of more than 100 carded at another Florida site.
“There are people who don't need to be doing this,” Betsy Swain said with a laugh.
Swain is a 20-year employee at the U.S. Golf Association who is director of championship administration. She takes entries for all of the USGA championships and monitors the qualifying scores. Each year, Swain said she has to send out hundreds of letters to golfers whose score was eight shots or higher than the course rating at their qualifier for the USGA's five biggest events.
It is the Scarlet Letter for golfers, who must thereafter prove, through posted scores in sanctioned tournaments, that they can truly play to the index they claim. If not, they won't be allowed in a qualifier again.
“It's a big thrill to enter U.S. Open qualifying,” Swain said. “Everybody I talk to on the phone thinks they are going to win the U.S. Open. Everybody has that pipe dream. 'I'm going to win it because I play really good.' It's a lot different than your club tournament or the father-daughter event.”
When golfers plead their case to be reinstated by the USGA, Swain has heard every excuse out there: “I didn't get enough sleep the night before. I had a fight with my wife. My clubs were lost at the airport.”
“The reality is that they are usually not capable of playing at this level,” Swain said. “They get annoyed at the letters. But we're trying to make it level for everybody. We don't want some guy who's a hacker out there, all over the place and holding up the field.”
One can imagine that Pechner's two playing partners for the qualifier were a little taken aback by what they saw, although Pechner said they could not have been more gracious. One of them was 2006 Southern California PGA champion Ross Marcano of Barona Creek.
“He hit some bad shots. I feel bad for him,” Marcano said. “I just don't think his game is ready for the U.S. Open. He wasn't ready for the sectional. He needs to go back and work on it some more.”
On one hole, Marcano said Pechner drove his ball out of bounds, re-teed, hit another shot, and then lost another ball in the rough and eventually made a 9.
There were various other challenges as the chilly, gray day wore on. At a hole on the back nine, Marcano said, Pechner skied his tee shot to the right, his ball landing near players on the adjacent fairway.
At the 18th, Pechner said he caught a fairway bunker with his drive and had a long carry over water to the green. He said his first attempt out got wet; after taking a drop, his second shot bounced off the rocks into the water; and the third shot got pushed by the wind into the lake.
It was at that point that Pechner could have decided to make a quick dash for his car; some golfers who play badly do. They don't turn in their card – although a “No Card” designation still draws a letter from the USGA. Pechner signed for his score and even waited to shake the hand of Daniel Miernicki, 18, an acquaintance from Arrowood who qualified with a 69.
Explaining why he signed his card, Pechner said, “I had to use my round as an example to my family and friends. The morals and the sportsmanship of the game are defined by how a player responds to the rules and conditions of play.”
Some who observed at Fairbanks, however, question whether Pechner had a bad day, or badly mangled golf's handicap ethics. Pechner said his index is “around 1.” A Southern California Golf Association official said yesterday Pechner is currently listed as a 0.2 handicap, but a score hasn't been posted by him with the SCGA since November.
Pechner knows he'll get the reprimand letter from the USGA, and he said he'll accept his punishment. He maintains that he showed his two daughters, ages 16 and 15, something about having dreams, even if he couldn't be Francis Ouimet.
“I set a limit out to the end of the moon,” Pechner said. “I might have set it out there a little too much, but you've got to shoot for higher than you know you can do.”
Tod Leonard: (619) 293-1858; tod.leonard@uniontrib.com
