Life is keen on the Memorial’s 18th Green

By Tami Kamin-Meyer

Numbers hold great mystique for many people. Gamblers lay down their chips on Lucky No. 7, superstitious people don‘t get married on Friday the 13th, and The Devil is best friends with the numerals 666. But, at the Memorial Golf Tournament, which began today and runs through Sunday at Muirfield Golf Course in Dublin, Ohio, countless golf fans favor the 18th green.

Jim McDowell, a retired collegiate soccer coach from Cincinnati, two hours south of Dublin, said he has sat and watched the tournament near the 18th hole for 31 years. “I love golf,” he said, adding, “and I always sit on the 18th hole.”

Three-time tournament attendee Jack Treinen, McDowell’s friend and fellow golf fan chimed in, “My friends like to watch on the 18th hole. We like to see what’s going on.”

Frank Clancy, another member of McDowell’s 18th hole gang, travels to Columbus from San Diego every year both to catch the tournament and visit his daughter and her family, who now live in Columbus. “I started coming to the tournament in 1976 when I lived in Cincinnati,” he said. Sometime after that, his daughter married and moved to Columbus. “I only come to Columbus once a year for five days,” he said, adding, “plus I get to see my daughter.”

The men began reliving some of their favorite moments from various Memorials they have attended together, reminiscing about the torrential rain that plagued the tourney in 2006 and laughing about the year it snowed out. In late May, early June.

 

All three men profess to loving golf and have no plans to stop attending the Memorial and sitting on the 18th green.

 

Kirsten Cantor, a resident of Gahanna, Ohio who has been coming to the Memorial for nearly a decade, said she enjoys sitting on the 18th for several reasons. “I like watching the emotions of the players. And it’s exciting, especially at the end of the tournament,” she said. Moreover, hunkering down near the 18th allows Cantor the perfect vantage point in which to people-watch, one of the favored activities of Memorial attendees. “It’s also a good intersection,” she said, noting that with more people milling about on the course’s final hole, she’s more apt to run into people she knows.

 

Cantor, who took off work from her job with the State of Ohio to attend the golf tournament, said she plans on attending the Memorial each of its four days. “I’ll be on the 18th for sure on Sunday,” when the tournament ends, she said, explaining another reason for her seating preference is her ability to watch the Leader board from the comfort of her chair.

 

Cynthia Duncan, who calls attending the Memorial with Cantor an annual tradition, said she likes the sit on the 18th green because, “I like to watch the player’s emotions, which gives me a feel for the game.”

 

Duncan, who has swung a golf club or two in her life but doesn’t consider herself a golfer, worked late Wednesday evening and early Thursday morning to make up for the hours she missed from her job as a loan officer, just to be at the tourney Thursday and Friday afternoons.

 

Jerre Motto drove seven hours from Mifflinburg, Pennsylvania to watch one of his former high school students play in the Memorial. “We watch Jason Bohn,” he said of himself and his friends who joined him for the trip. When Motto was a physical education teacher at Mifflinburg High School, Bohn was a student at the school. “We’ll come to the Memorial as long as Jason is playing,” he said, noting his group thought the course’s final hole gave them the best vantage point. The Memorial is but just one of the golf tournaments the three retired schoolteachers will attend this season to cheer on their school’s golf prodigy.

 

The years have been good to Brice Talley, who, on the eve of his 37th birthday, is attending his twentieth Memorial Golf Tournament. Talley is proud the golf tournament is held in his hometown of Dublin, Ohio, and makes it a point of expressing his support by being in the tournament’s gallery of fans every year. “I like the social scene and all the great golfers, “ said the executive recruiter for Columbus-based Gammill Group.

 

Among Talley’s favorite tournament memories occurred on the Memorial’s 18th hole just last year. “My favorite memory is when Jack [Nicklaus] played his last round at the Memorial. The crowd [around the 18th] was very emotional,” he said.

 

For Steve Grace, Talley’s work colleague and fellow Memorial attendee, this year’s tournament is his twelfth. He said his group parked themselves near the 18th hole because “We thought we’d get to see Tiger [Woods]” from that vantage point, he said. Then, he laughed and added, “It’s near the B-n-B…bathrooms and beer!”

 

So much for sentimentality.