Pro Golf’s Farm System Called Up From The Pastures, Landers A Hit On Senior Tour

The story of Robert Landers stands as a modern fairy tale.

Or maybe it should be called a dairy tale.

In either case, it has applied an interlocking grip on the nation’s fancy.

How could it not? Not with the way the Texas dairy farmer, with his homemade swing, pounded so many balls amid the cows in his pasture that he worked his way onto the Senior PGA Tour.

Not with the way the 52-year-old in gym shoes has golfed across the country - looking so unaffected, so contrary to the pampered image of professional golfers, so … so much like the rest of us.

The entire tale could not be more enchanting than if some fairy golf-mother had poofed into Azle, Texas, waved her magic wedge, and cast him full-force onto the Senior Tour.

Next Monday, Robert Landers’ improbable journey makes a stop at MeadowWood in Liberty Lake as he is scheduled to be among the 20 Senior PGA Tour pros to participate in the second Pro Classic - where he once again will draw considerable fan attention.

“It’s not something I seek; I don’t see that I’m much of anything special that people would want to know about,” Landers said from Park City, Utah, where he is preparing for this week’s Franklin Quest Championship.

As Raymond Floyd predicted, “No one else is going to get any publicity on the Tour this year, but I think Robert’s story is great; it’s the American Dream.”

Yes, Landers has been swamped by the media, facing reporters at every junction.

“I’m surprised it’s still going, that people are still interested,” Landers said.

More comfortable in work clothes (he has an endorsement contract with Dickies), Landers stands as role model for the weekend hacker.

Understanding this, he accepts his notoriety, although with a bit of reluctance.

“My wife and I have said that this is kind of, in a way, a role I play,” he said. “It’s probably a responsibility that I share it with people who need something good to see, something that maybe can give them hope that good things can happen if you work hard enough.”

It is clearly Landers’ background - not his golf game - that has spurred the attention.

Through the third week in August, Landers stood 79th on the Senior Tour money-winning list at slightly less than $50,000.

The problems? “Getting it in the hole - putting and chipping,” he said of the skills that one can’t practice in a pasture.

None of which seems to matter to his legion of fans called the “Moo Crew,” or to those buying his autobiography “Greener Pastures,” or to Davis Entertainment, producers of movies such as “The Firm,” and “Waterword,” who have acquired the movie rights to Landers’ story.

“If they make a movie about us, I hope they get Jaclyn Smith to play me,” said Landers’ wife, Freddie.

To which Robert Landers said: “If they get Jaclyn Smith to play you, then I want to play myself.”

A trumpet player who dropped out of TCU’s school of music education after his junior year, Landers did not play golf until he was 22.

But during his stretch as a mechanic in the Air Force, he practiced fanatically.

And while managing Mitchell’s department store in Azle, Landers would take his shag bag to the park and work on his game.

A lot of people practice the game of golf. But Landers’ absorption with the game went beyond that. He contends, for instance, that in the early 1970s he would hit 70,000 practice balls a year while playing only 10 rounds during that span.

Three times he won the Fort Worth Amateur championship and in 1980 qualified for the U.S. Open, where an 83-77 sent him packing.

Chronic back pain caused him to give up the game entirely, while much of the rest of his quiet life began unraveling.

Mitchell’s closed down, leaving him unemployed, and his first marriage dissolved.

Landers remarried and took up farming with Freddie, trying to make due by cutting and delivering firewood - averaging a meager combined income of about $11,000 annually.

But the hard work with the firewood had the effect of curing Landers’ back problems, and he bought back a set of homemade clubs he had sold to a relative.

A strong performance in the Texas State Open in 1994 - after he had turned 50 - caused Landers to focus on an attempt at the Senior qualifying tournament in November.

Landers and wife showed up for the tournament in Tampa, Fla., with plastic garbage sacks serving as their luggage. He finished tied for sixth and earned a year’s exemption.

The Landerses were struck with a sense of social vertigo, though, when attending a party at Floyd’s home the week of his first tournament.

“When we arrived at the Floyds, I suppose we felt a little like the Jed Clampetts first showing up in Beverly Hills,” Landers noted in his book.

The experiences this year - as foriegn as they are - will not change Landers, suggested Jerry Hamilton, his friend and agent.

“Change him? No, not at all,” Hamilton said. “He’s just so easygoing, he doesn’t even realize some things that are happening to him.”

Even though he hasn’t threatened the leaderboard, his appearance alone is enough to draw the fans.

“I bet we had a couple hundred people come up to me and ask if Robert Landers was coming,” said Pro Classic promoter Toby Steward. “For a long while there wasn’t a day that went by that somebody didn’t ask about him.”

Why? “Because he represents any weekend golfers’ wildest dreams - making it to the Tour.”

Landers’ performance this season will almost certainly not earn an exemption for next year (a top-31 finish would be necessary), meaning he’ll have to fight his way back through the qualifying tournament again.

“The one thing I see is how hard it is for an average guy to get into something like golf and compete against people that’s done it all their lives,” Landers said. “I thought after a couple months I could be competitive and play like I do at home, but golf is so hard it don’t always want to cooperate.”

And if he ends up back on the farm, well, that’s fine.

“We were happy before; the farm is a good place and I can’t see why we wouldn’t be happy again,” Landers said. “The trouble is that it’ll take us a year to get caught up on the work.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo