HYANNISPORT, Mass. – Then there are those days when the perspectives and the banter and the weather and the historical vibes and beautiful swings are so exquisite that you wish the game hadn’t ended in a tidy four hours.
Six or seven would have been quite OK with me.
That was the overwhelming sentiment that accompanied me on the ride home after having been blessed to be part of a foursome on a Cape Cod day when golf’s official colors – blue sky, green grass – were at their vibrant best.
As if the stage, The Hyannisport Club, weren’t premier enough, this was a day to savor the glory of major championship golf talk.
There was Pat Bradley, who won six of them, including three in that "magical Summer of 1986." That we can toast her 40th anniversary of the year when Bradley completed the career grand slam was joyous enough, but my reverence for golf’s history was rewarded with the presence of Tom Creavy, Sr. His uncle, Thomas Daniel Creavy, won the PGA Championship 95 years ago at Wannamoisett in Rumford, R.I.
A gentleman whose knowledge about a Golden Age of Met Section golf – back in the 1920s and ‘30s when Turnesa brothers (seven), Strafaci brothers (five) and Creavy brothers (four) blazed trails and did wondrous things in golf – Tom Creavy Sr. is fast approaching his 85th birthday and still plays beautifully.
He and Bradley, 75, are longtime members at the Hyannisport Club and on this day they were the consummate hosts. They agreed that it never gets old to play this Donald Ross gem that overlooks Nantucket Sound and that knowing she is “walking where the President (John F. Kennedy) once walked,” still gives Pat Bradley chills.
They also brilliantly guided and praised the crisp play of another member of the group, a young woman, Kasha O’Keefe. As Kasha Scott she forged a nice junior resume in the Cherry Hills Village area in Denver, and she played collegiately at Bucknell (Class of ’14). At the ‘Port on this sun-splashed day, chip-in birdies at the demanding par-3 eighth and the par-4 13th created great excitement and turned Bradley and Creavy into cheerleaders.
Not that these hosts didn’t produce plenty of highlights themselves because Bradley and Creavy most certainly did.
The ending was particularly sweet for Bradley, a devilish right-to-left par-save from 15 feet at the idyllic par-3 17th setting the stage for a 12-footer for birdie at the 18th and as high-fives were exchanged she exclaimed, “Now that’s how I remember it.”
Creavy, meanwhile, hasn’t forgotten a thing about course management and how to flight his long irons low so they pierce through the Hyannisport winds. Even more blessedly – especially for a history geek as myself – Tom Creavy, Sr., possesses a deep soul and can regale you with his family’s storied history in the game.
His father, Joe, and his three brothers (Tom, Bill, and Jack) had roots in the Eastchester-Tuckahoe area of Westchester Country in New York. Affectionately dubbed the “cradle of golf” by a New York golf writer because four golfers from that area had won prestigious in the same era – Willie MacFarlane (1925 U.S. Open), Jesse Sweetser (1926 British Amateur), Johnny Farrell (1928 U.S. Open), and Tom Creavy (1931 PGA).
Just 20 years old when he beat Gene Sarazen in the semifinals and Denny Shute in the championship match, Tom Creavy was a true protégé, taught by MacFarlane, a talented Scotsman, and a seemingly brilliant career beckoned. “Only he suffered an unfortunate back injury and never really got over it,” said the nephew.
Tom Creavy later became a heralded club pro in the Albany and Saratoga, N.Y., areas, remaining in the game, just like his brothers. Joe Creavy, Tom Sr.’s father, was a club pro and a confidant of the late Fred Corcoran, who not only was the quasi-commissioner of the PGA Tour but was Tournament Director when the LPGA was launched in 1950.
If this day was tied together by a beautiful bow, it wasn’t so much the weather, which was Chamber of Commerce quality, but what connected these three golfers. Start with Kasha O’Keefe and her husband, Casey, who named their 15-month-old son Keegan, and yes, Pat Bradley’s nephew and 2011 PGA Championship winner was the inspiration.
Then factor in this – Joe Creavy, Tom’s dad, was working alongside Corcoran 76 years ago, helping to give birth to the LPGA. So how convenient it was that the player who arguably had one of the greatest LPGA seasons ever was exchanging classic golf swings on this day with Joe’s son.
It is that summer from 40 years ago that captivated my fancy and Pat Bradley didn’t deny that after winning the Dinah Shore in April and the LPGA Championship on June 1, the U.S. Women’s Open in mid-July at the South Course of NCR Country Club in Kettering, Ohio, carried historical importance that stirred her emotions.
Bradley told reporters that week that “it’s not going to make or break my year if it doesn’t happen,” but at Hyannisport she reminisced how “I shot myself in the foot” with an opening 76. Finishing T-5, three off the lead was an admirable effort, but the pride still bubbles over when she recalls what followed two weeks later.
Sharing the spotlight with a young man named Keegan is something Pat Bradley is used to, though in this case it was with Keegan O'Keefe, son of of Casey and Kasha O'Keefe. Also taking part in the festivities was Tom Creavy, Sr., who like Pat Bradley, has a deep reverence for the game's history.
“I always felt like I was a No. 1 player,” said Bradley, “but I hadn’t reached my potential. The major win in Canada (she shot 12-under to capture the du Maurier) cemented that.”
In a story for Sports Illustrated, Barry McDermott wrote that “now they call her Payday Pat” alluding to her six wins and $492,021 in prize money that year and the fact that she had become the first to reach $2m in career.
Not that any of that outshined her having completed the career grand slam. (She had won the 1981 U.S. Women’s Open.)
When she walked away in 1995, Bradley had won 31 times and earned both LPGA Hall of Fame and World Golf Hall of Fame status. No small feat for the woman who really hadn’t envisioned a pro golf career, at least not until she won back-to-back New England Women Amateurs in the early 1970s.
Spending some winters in Marco Island, Fla., and crossing paths with the great Gene Sarazen was a priceless experience that opened her eyes. “He saw me on the range one day, came over and stepped on my golf ball. ‘Now hit that one,’ he said, ‘because you don’t get perfect lies in tournaments,’ ” she recalled.
Winless in her first two seasons, 1974 and ’75, Bradley broke through with a victory in 1976 then recorded three more in ’78. But it was that 1986 dominance that cemented her legend and still makes her gush with pride 40 years later.
“Not winning the U.S. Women’s Open (and thus a regular season Grand Slam) was a letdown,” she said. “Oh, what could’ve been . . .”
True, that.
But glorious is the other side, how Bradley’s majestic Summer of ’86 remains a gold-standard 40 years later and her career is forever enshrined. And how on a beautiful day overlooking Nantucket Sound, two remarkable legends who have a deep respect for what yesteryear provided them brought the game to life alongside a young woman who plays the game wonderfully and is still authoring her story.
Marvelous, all of it.
