Switch From Batter's Stance to Golfer's Grip May Be Opening to Pro Career for Perryman

By PAUL McLEOD

June 5, 1988 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

Growing up in Whittier, Mike Perryman, as many kids do, had thoughts of a professional baseball career.

But when his playing days ended at Cal State Dominguez Hills last year, the scouts weren’t knocking his door down, even though he helped the team to two conference titles and a trip to the Division II World Series.

So after four seasons of college baseball, Perryman, who was a year and a half shy of a obtaining a bachelor’s degree, picked up a set of golf clubs. Then he returned to college last fall and attempted to make the Toro golf team under a Division II rule allowing an athlete a fifth year of competition in another sport.

He took a few lessons and hung out at driving ranges. No one took his effort seriously.

Except Perryman.

This spring he not only made the team, he worked his way up to become the No. 2 man. His handicap dropped from 10 to 4. His round of 67 late in the season was just two strokes shy of a Toro record. Those accomplishments convinced him to compete in amateur tournaments this summer, with an eye toward seeking a pro card in a couple of years.

He is no stranger to success, having been the only person to earn the coach’s award in two sports at Dominguez Hills. Yet, the accomplishments of the guy friends call “the P-Man” is a tribute to fortitude after a series of childhood disasters that would have sapped the will of many men twice his 23 years.

Said Dominguez Hills golf Coach John L. Johnson: “He’s a great competitor. Mike is one of those guys that is tougher than a bootstrap.”

He had to be that way. Life has thrown more than a few stumbling blocks his way.

His parents separated when he was 9. A year later, a sister, Gina, died of leukemia.

Then, at 16, he and four friends left a movie theater in Westwood for a cruise through Bel Air on a warm summer night. The driver, a Mira Costa teammate, lost control of the car on a curve and flipped over. A female classmate was killed.

Perryman’s 5-10, 160-pound frame was crumpled in the back seat of the small car. His pelvis was crushed and his right leg required surgery for a broken femur and a broken tibia. The bones had to be clamped in place with steel rods inserted through his hip.

Doctors told him “to be realistic” about his future. They said he never would play again. Some questioned whether he would ever walk normally.

Perryman fooled the experts. He was unable to play football as a senior, but was Mira Costa’s starting shortstop and the baseball team advanced to the Southern Section 5-A championship game.

His tenacity, coping daily with pain, surprised even his friends.

“He is motivated to win. He has such drive,” said Redondo Beach attorney Bob Courtney, a family friend who introduced Perryman to golf lessons. “To come back from that accident the way he did and play baseball, that’s why he’s so good at golf.”

Andy Lopez was making a transition as baseball coach at Mira Costa to a similar position at Dominguez Hills at the time of Perryman’s accident.

“That was a growth time for him,” Lopez said. “The thing about him is, he had some rough times, but he handled them well. It’s made him a better person.”

“I’ve been excited to see how far I have come in such a short time,” Perryman said.

Golf has presented new pressures, finesse being one of them.

“There are a million guys who can hit it a long way,” he said, “but it is guys who can get it up and down that win.”

Perryman is mastering shot selection constantly, always looking for new challenges. Chasing his pro card will show him “at an early age what I am made of.”

A private instructor, UCLA golf Coach Ed Merrins, said he noticed something different about the way Perryman approaches the game.

“As a teacher, I am very impressed with him as a student,” Merrins said. “He has a comprehension and thirst for knowledge that he turns into results. He’s one of those kids that takes what you have to say to heart.”

Merrins said Perryman can only improve.

“A year from now he should be considerably better than he is now because of his work ethic.”

Perryman says he discovered at a young age that you don’t get many breaks in life, but that you can make some for yourself if you want to succeed. At Mira Costa, he landed a starting role on the school’s varsity baseball team as a freshman. On the diamond at Dominguez Hills, he was part of an infield that became known as the Grommets, a bunch of highly motivated over-achievers who, according to Lopez, did not know when to quit. That group contributed to a school-record 43 victories.

To improve his golf game, Perryman realizes that he must push himself even harder. He became a club member at Industry Hills Golf Course recently because he felt he needed a better challenge. Offering tight fairways and varying lengths of rough, a pair of courses there are considered some of Southern California’s most difficult.

“I figure that if I can be a four handicap at Industry Hills, I can be just about a scratch golfer anywhere else, “ he said.

Merrins said Perryman is a rare breed of athlete, a natural performer who takes instruction and expands on it. Merrins ranks him with former Laker star Jerry West, now the team’s general manager, and former UCLA basketball star Ann Meyers.

“They can command their bodies to do anything,” he said. “(Perryman) can take what you mentally tell him to do and transform it into his body.”