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Bucky's Bunker - June 1, 2010
His eyes failing and his body no longer up to the physical challenges of a round of golf, Rodney Boren faced the facts one day last year and removed his clubs from storage at Moraine Country Club.
The golf bag sits now in his Kettering apartment as a constant reminder of an extraordinary lifetime on the links.
He was always a better-than-average golfer -- he has some trophies on the shelf to prove it – but the wealth of his golfing life has been much greater than the sum of the awards he has accumulated.
Boren, who will be 94 on June 14, has had golf experiences that few, if any, can match.
As of 10 years ago, he had played on every course where the four major championships had been held. We’re talking about the Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open and the PGA Championship.
He also had played the top 100 courses in the United States on the lists of GOLF and Golf Digest magazines and every course that had hosted the Walker Cup and Ryder Cup matches.
It is difficult to believe someone could do this, but Boren did.
This, of course, did not happen by accident. When he was in his 60s, Boren realized that he had played many of the venues on Golf Digest’s list of “America’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses” thanks to the contacts he had made performing his duties as an executive of the Mead Corporation.
One day he decided to collect all of them.
“I looked over the list and I’d played 50 or 60 of them,” Boren told me 20 years ago. “I said, ‘I think I’ll play them all. I didn’t realize they were going to change them all the time.”
At that time the Golf Digest list changed every two years, with a few courses being added and others being dropped, so it took awhile for Boren to reach his goal. When he did, he called Golf Digest and asked if someone could send him a copy of every list that had been published since the first listing in 1969.
When he received the lists, he gradually checked them off until he had played every one. Some had been changed from public to private and others had changed their names or the routing of their holes, but that didn’t stop him.
Most of the courses on the list were of the elite variety, which would make it difficult for the average person to gain access. But Boren had enough influential friends across the country to arrange it. Some belonged to these clubs and invited him to stay at their homes during the visit.
It was a costly adventure, no doubt, with the courses spread all over the country. The air fares, alone, surely ran up a significant tab, but Boren preferred to drive when he could.
In 1988 he took a 19-day automobile trip during which he played 17 of the country’s finest courses. He drove to St. Louis and played Old Warson and Bellerive on the same day. The following day he played Southern Hills at Tulsa. He stopped in Edmond, Okla., and played Oak Tree before going farther west to play seven courses in California.
Then he drove to Houston and played two courses at Champions Club before returning to Dayton.
He had to cross the Atlantic Ocean a few times to play the many British Open venues.
“I wanted to play where the great players played,” he explained. “I had no idea I’d do all of this.”
Bob Lowden, a Moraine member who regularly plans golfing trips to Scotland, Ireland and other countries, set up a 1997 trip for Boren, his son and his grandson.
They played Sunningdale (a Walker Cup site) and three courses along the English Channel – Royal St. Georges, Royal Cinque Ports (known as Deal when it hosted the 1909 and 1920 Opens) and Princes.
To this day, Boren remembers a response he got from a caddy at St. Georges. As they walked along, Boren asked the caddy, “Can you see France from here?”
The caddy wasted no time replying, “Only on a bad day.”
After Boren’s son and grandson flew back to the U.S., he took a six-hour train ride from Sandwich to Southport and played Royal Birkdale, Royal Lytham and Royal Liverpool (formerly Hoylake). Then he rode the train four hours to Edinburgh to play a forgotten course that hosted the British Open six times – all before 1890.
Although St. Andrews claims that its Old Course is the oldest in the world, the people at Musselburgh (pronounced Mussel-burro) claim that theirs is the oldest unchanged course in the world. Mary Queen of Scots is said to have played it in the year 1567.
Musselburgh is a links course with 7 ½ holes inside a horse track and 1 12/2 holes outside the track – much like the old Speedway course in Indianapolis. Two fairways go right across the turf track. The course measures 2,808 yards.
At Musselburgh Boren, 81 years old at the time, discovered there were no caddies and no carts to rent, so he put his bag on his shoulder and played the course.
“It didn’t bother me,” he said. “I was so keyed up I could have played another nine easily.”
It was fitting that Musselburgh, which was rather scruffy compared to a typical U.S. course, would be the one to complete Boren’s British Open collection.
“This is the way they played the Open 100 years ago, in the same condition,” he said. “That’s what I liked about it.”
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