A good day to grind on the golf course

Maintaining a 3 handicap at age 52 takes serious talent, especially

when you consider how your body doesn’t always do what your mind says

[in fact, it’s quite seldom when it does].

But for veterans of the game like Danny Bibb of Big Canyon Country

Club, the recent weather has been too good to pass up. He played

hooky Wednesday instead of grinding at the office.

“There are no more rounds in the 60s,” said Bibb, the Newport-Mesa

community’s all-time men’s club champion with 11 career titles from

1977 through ’84 at Newport Beach Country Club [formerly Irvine Coast

CC] and Big Canyon. “There no more 65s, 66s, 67s ... I’ve slowed up a

little, but I’m still enjoying it.”

In catching up with Bibb -- and fittingly during Masters week for

the golf-oholic that he is -- it reminded me of Tiger Woods, an

honorary member at Big Canyon since the early 1990s and who has been

spotted playing there with people like Bibb.

“Tiger likes people. It’s just, you know ... they hound him so

bad. He just wants to relax,” Bibb once said.

With Woods gearing up for his third straight Masters title [former

Costa Mesa High and Santa Ana Country Club junior standout Dennis

Paulson is not in this year’s field], the Georgia rain this week at

Augusta National could play right into Tiger’s hands.

“The course is playing brutally long,” Bibb said. “I’ve been

watching The Golf Channel and all the press conferences and all the

players are saying the course is playing long. All that does is

increase the chances for Tiger. Actually, I kind of wish they’d

change the style a little bit in some of the big tournaments so more

guys could win. If it’s a real long golf course, only six to 12 guys

can win. That’s it. When you make the U.S. Open, like at Bethpage

(N.Y.) last year, so long, it sets up perfect for Tiger.”

Too bad Augusta doesn’t have our weather this week.

*

Bibb, who used to beat the pros who came to town during warmup

rounds for the old Crosby Southern Pro-Am, didn’t give any players on

the Champions Tour tips on how to play Newport Beach this year.

But his “local knowledge” is so reputable, Bibb has actually been

a secret weapon for at least two pros in the Toshiba Senior Classic

field, providing pre-tournament insight to the nuances of the tricky

greens, among other things.

His good friend and fellow Big Canyon member, Ron Lane, insisted

on Gary McCord having lunch with Bibb before his first Toshiba Senior

Classic appearance in ’99. McCord won his first PGA Tour or senior

tour event in 383 career starts when he captured the Toshiba that

year in dramatic style.

In 1996, the first year the event was played at Newport Beach,

Bibb sat down with John Schroeder and went through the course hole by

hole. Schroeder was one of the first-round leaders and mentioned

Bibb’s help in a press conference.

Bibb, who played collegiately at UC Irvine after starring at

Corona del Mar High in the 1960s and leading the Sea Kings to a CIF

Southern Section title in ’67 [along with current Santa Ana Country

Club Director of Golf Mike Reehl], once said he played “something

like 300-plus rounds a year” throughout his four years in high school

after his grandfather introduced him to the game at age 13, when

Bibb’s family moved to Newport Beach from La Canada.

*

Bibb, a successful Newport Beach real estate broker, lost $10 to

Arnold Palmer at Pebble Beach during a three-day corporate outing

hosted by the owners of Pebble Beach Golf Links on April 29, 2000,

not long after the King made his Newport Beach debut.

*

A memorial celebration for Pat Cox, the former Santa Ana Country

Club women’s champion who died recently, will be April 16 at St.

Andrews Church at 3:30 p.m., followed by a time of camaraderie at the

Duck Farm at 4:15 p.m.

*

“What’ in the Bag?”, TheGolfChannel.com’s online feature that

reveals what equipment PGA Tour winners are playing, is becoming a

fast-paced, magazine-style television series on The Golf Channel.

Hosted by Golf Channel Busi The series will include 13 episodes,

each airing Wednesdays beginning April 16 [check for local times].