Bob Dickson, past PGA Tour, PGA Tour Champions winner torches Players Stadium Course with 63
It wasn’t Bob Dickson’s best 18-hole score – that remains a 59 he shot at the age of 19 in 1963 at the Muskogee Country Club in his native Oklahoma.
But the past PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions winner and former Tour executive wonders if he’ll ever have a more memorable day than May 12 at the Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass.
Dickson birdied his first four holes, including a chip-in at No. 1, and went on to fire a 9-under 63 to lop 15 strokes off his age of 78.
“I’m still shaking my head about it,” he said a few hours after the round, which he played with the TPC Sawgrass “Munchkins,” a core of charter members and former Tour employees and players who tee it up as often as five times a week at the Stadium or Valley courses. “Everything felt right. At my age, I play as often as the weather and the body parts permit and today the weather and the body parts were permitting.”
Constellation Furyk & Friends field likely to face a firmer, faster Timquana Country Club
Dickson played with Peter Kuchar, the father of 2012 Players champion Matt Kuchar, Joe Monahan, the father of PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, and former Tour staffer Sid Wilson.
Kuchar was second in the group with an 80 – 17 shots behind Dickson.
“It was an exceptional day,” Kuchar said. “It was a joy to watch Bob play like he did.”’
Dickson played a blended version of the resort and forward tees, which totaled around 5,400 yards.
After his opening chip-in, Dickson birdied Nos. 2, 3 and 4 on putts of 10 feet or less. He then drained a 30-foot par attempt at No. 5, after he hooked his tee shot dead into a tree, with the ball bouncing back into the fairway, but only 50 yards ahead of the tee.
Dickson had 100 yards for his third shot.
He birdied No. 7 and turned at 5-under, then birdied Nos. 10, 12, 15 and 18 on the back nine. Dickson blasted out of a bunker for birdie at the 15th and made a twisting 15-foot putt for birdie at the last.
“I kept wondering who I was and what someone did with the old Bob,” he said.
Dickson has had some magical days with the Munchkins. In 2011 he made an albatross at No. 2, a hole-in-one at No. 8 and shot 66.
“I have a great time with these guys every time I go out,” he said. “Whether I shoot 63 or 79, it’s always enjoyable.”
Dickson was an All-American at Oklahoma State in the 1960s and won the 1967 U.S. Amateur and British Amateur. His two PGA Tour titles included the 1973 Tour stop at Torrey Pines, and he won his PGA Tour Champions event at the Upper Montclair (N.J.) Country Club, the site of this week’s LPGA tournament. He beat World Golf Hall of Fame member Larry Nelson and Jim Colbert in a playoff.
Dickson served as the director of marketing for the TPC Network, was a Champions Tour rules official and was the first tournament director for the Korn Ferry Tour when it was formed in 1990 as the Nike Tour.
Four-ball in Birmingham
Two teams with area residents are competing in the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball this week at the Country Club of Birmingham (Ala.) West and East Courses.
Stroke-play qualifying is Saturday and Sunday will be on both courses. The top-32 teams will advance to match play on the West course beginning on Monday.
Defending Jacksonville Amateur champion Mike Smith of Ponte Vedra Beach will play with Will Davenport of Palm City. Their stroke-play tee times are 9:48 a.m. off No. 1 of the East course on Saturday and 1:12 p.m. off No. 1 of the West course on Sunday.
Smith is a Nease graduate who played college golf at James Madison. Davenport is a former Yale golfer.
Toby Ragland of Jacksonville, a former University of Florida player and a Bartram Trail graduate, will play with Jayce Barber of High Springs, the brother of Korn Ferry Tour member Blayne Barber. They will start at No. 1 on the East course at 12:24 p.m. on Saturday and at No. 1 of the West Course at 9 a.m. on Sunday.
Latkowski wins Florida Mid-Am
Joey Latkowski of Port St. Lucie defeated Jake Sherwin of Estero in 20 holes to win the Florida Mid-Amateur last week at the Oaks Club in Osprey. It was Latkowski’s second victory in the state Mid-Am in three years.
Three area players qualified for match play. Jeff Golden of Jacksonville tied for third at 4-under 140 (69-71), Devon Hopkins of Atlantic Beach tied for 17th (147) and Alex Grote of St. Augustine tied for 21st (148).
Grote won one match, beating Austin Collins of Deerfield Beach 2 and 1, before falling in the second round in 19 holes to Austin Powell of Fort Lauderdale. Golden, who recently won the Jacksonville Area Golf Association Match Play, and Hopkins fell in the first round.
Grazing in the grass
Andrew Kunkle of Jacksonville led four First Coast players among the top-10 in the Florida Junior Tour’s Grasslands Open for 16-18 year-olds, at the Grasslands Golf and Country Club in Lakeland.
Kunkle had rounds of 73-74—147 to tie for fifth, five shots behind winner Mohit Balaji of Kissimmee. Henry Robards of Jacksonville, Cody Tucker of Atlantic Beach and Jackson Klauk of St. Augustine tied for ninth at 149.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Past PGA Tour winner Bob Dickson torches Players Stadium Course for 63
