Were you to imagine a lifestyle for yourself that was draped in a sense of peace amid the great outdoors, chances are being involved at an elite level of golf as club pro for more than 25 years would rate highly with you.
Or perhaps cruising the high seas and living on your boat would make you nod your approval.
But if you were to have both lifestyles, what exactly would that be?
Here’s a suggestion that it would be called Captain Ted O’Rourke’s great adventure.
Such a thought makes the Massachusetts native chuckle. “There have been a lot of pretty cool experiences,” he said. “We’ve met so many friends on the water and gone to so many cool little marinas, places we probably wouldn’t have seen without our boat.”
Captain O’Rourke was speaking from his 43-foot Albin Trawler, which is aptly named “Who Knew.” As in: Who knew this is how such a distinguished life member of the PGA of America would be living his retirement years with wife Amy?
Never in his years as a club pro – more than 10 in Massachusetts, 23 in New Jersey – had he owned a boat, though Ted O’Rourke did spend some summer days on his grandparents’ boat up in Casco Bay in Maine. “I think I might have had water in my blood,” he said.
At Morris County Golf Club in Morristown, N.J., where he worked from 1991-2013, O’Rourke was friendly with a lot of members who owned boats and on those occasions when he’d be out on the water, the golf pro could feel the pull of the sea.
“When I started looking at boats (and broached the idea of living on the water), my wife said she’d give me a year,” said O’Rourke.
One has turned into nine and from Charleston, S.C., which is the home port of “Who Knew” these days, Captain Ted O’Rourke still talks passionately about adding to their “experiences of finding new places from the water.”
He and Amy have navigated up to Newport, R.I., and along the East River and Long Island Sound. They’ve visited Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River. The pandemic was spent in Jacksonville, Fla., and plenty of other Florida ports have attracted Captain O’Rourke’s attention.
The title is not a token one, either, as O’Rourke is a United States Coast Guard licensed captain. “When we first got the boat, I hired a captain so I could learn what to do,” he said. Eventually, he took USCG classes, but don’t think O’Rourke is the highest-ranked officer on board, “because Amy is the Admiral.”
The Captain offers a warm laugh but he’ll quickly tell you that “when you have a 43-foot boat, the furthest you’re ever away from your wife is 42 feet.” He lets that thought set in, then adds: “So we’ve definitely grown as a couple. Amy did not envision (the boat life) at all, but she’s been extra supportive.
“We’ve had a lot of great trips and some difficult ones, too, but it’s been an amazing experience.”
Leaving port, said Captain Ted O'Rourke, is like leaving the first tee of a golf tournament. "You are nervous for how things will go. If you're not nervous, you're not alive." (Ted O'Rourke photo.)
What resonates when you study Captain Ted O’Rourke is that some people never find adventure in their lives. And here he is living a second wonderful journey, the first having come inside the borders of golf.
There were triumphs as a competitor in New England – he won the 1981 PGA National Assistants Tournament at Thorny Lea GC in Brockton, Mass.; the 1988 NEPGA Pro-Pro with Mickey Herron; and the 1990 New England Open at the Quechee Club in Vermont – and he was the first head pro at Willowbend on Cape Cod.
Life was good and then O’Rourke became quite blessed when it got even better with the chance to work at Morris County GC. “There’s great loyalty there, a great membership. It’s the sister club to Baltusrol and the history of the game is important there.”
Established by a group of women before 1900, Morris County GC became the first women-only club to be granted membership in the U.S. Golf Association. The iconic Seth Raynor (possibly in tandem with Charles Blair MacDonald) is the architect of record and for 23 years O’Rourke left his own legacy at Morris County GC (two-time NJPGA Golf Pro of the Year and a Bill Strausbaugh Award winner).
“The club was wonderful to me,” said O’Rourke, who served as president of the NJPGA and worked on the PGA of America’s National Board.
It was at Morris County in the early 1990s that O’Rourke met one of his dearest friends in the game – the World Golf Hall of Fame member Dennis Walters. Paralyzed in a golf cart accident in 1974, Walters has lived an inspiring life, showing tens of thousands of golfers that the game can be played beautifully, even from a wheelchair.
“When I kept the boat in Jupiter, Fla., one winter, I helped Dennis with his shows and last summer I caddied for him when he won (his division at the first) national adaptive open in Pinehurst.”
It is a splendid way to segue into a lovely layer to the Captain Ted O’Rourke story – that while he retired from golf to live on the high seas, his soul remains forever tied to his first true love.
“I’ll admit, the business of the game was getting to me a little bit,” said O’Rourke. “But after I retired and bought the boat, it’s funny, but I began to miss golf again.”
The reconnections to golf have been in delightful ways – a family trip to Ireland with his sons, the chance to caddie for Walters in a memorable Pinehurst week, and watching his sons hit balls on the range. When O’Rourke offered a few tips, positive results followed, “and my younger son said, ‘Dad, why don’t you do this again.’ ”
O’Rourke surveyed the landscape from his boat in Charleston and knew that the City of Charleston Municipal Golf Course wasn’t far away. He had time. He had desire. Most of all, he had the Admiral’s approval.
“So I started going up there to offer lessons. It’s been great. The club has been very, very helpful and very, very encouraging.”
He is a golf professional who is a boat captain. He is a boat captain who is a golf professional. Good luck trying to find a better convergence of two worlds.
