Brodie Can Spin A Yarn As Well As He Spins A Golf Ball

The difference between the PGA and Senior tours? Why, length, of course.

The Seniors are shorter off the tee, but their stories carry better.

Forty-three years in the case of the one John Brodie exhumed to preface his participation in Monday’s Pro Classic at the Creek at Qualchan.

The double-sport Deions, Bos and MJs of today, for all their gifts, are still not quite in John Brodie’s league JB having achieved the enviable parlay of being a National Football League MVP (1970) and a champion at this golf dodge, as well (Security Pacific Classic, 1990).

The ancient among us can recall him moonlighting from his quarterback job with the 49ers in the early 1960s to dabble on the tour. But it takes a real geezer to remember that the summers of Brodie’s youth were whiled away at Hayden Lake, or rather on the fairways of the country club.

“That’s where I learned the game - in one summer,” said Brodie, whose mother, Margaret, grew up in Spokane. “I was caddying. I’d play 20 rounds a year because I liked it. But in Oakland, there was really nowhere for me to play - no attention placed on it as a continuing thing.

“But when you got up to Hayden, you either swam or you played golf. And I didn’t swim much. So I played 54 holes a day - and then the next year when I came up, I went from shooting in the 90s to breaking par.”

He remembers entering a tournament at Downriver in 1954, rubbing niblicks with the likes of Bud Ward and shooting a first-round 70 to tie for the lead “because I didn’t know any better.”

Better still, he recollects a fateful afternoon in the Hayden living room of an incurable hacker by the name of Crosby, who had a little tournament of his own.

“We used to hang around with the Crosby boys,” Brodie said. “I was in a tournament and I said, ‘Man, I’d sure like to beat Joe Lynch tomorrow.’ Bing looks up and says, ‘Joe Lynch? You playing him? I didn’t even know you played golf. What do you shoot?”’

To which Brodie had the perfect prodigy’s reply:

“I don’t know.”

“How long you been playing?” asked Bing.

“A couple months.”

“Well, Joe Lynch is probably the best player in the Northwest.”

“I know,” Brodie answered. “That’s why I’m a little anxious.” “Well, I tell you what,” offered Crosby. “If you beat him, I’ll caddy for you in the finals.”

You probably know where this is going. Brodie fired a 67 and there to hoist his clubs out of the trunk of his car the next morning was a caddy named Bing Crosby.

“Then he turned around,” Brodie recalled, “and said, ‘John, I’d rather watch this match than caddy. Will you settle for an invitation to my tournament?’ Well, I didn’t even know what that was. So I’m a freshman at Stanford and I get an invitation to play in the Crosby - and I played for 35 straight years. I’m 18 and I’m playing with Dean Martin. It was the start of probably the greatest experience I had in my life.”

Golf has been, at various times in Brodie’s 61 years, a diversion, a hobby, a profession and, finally, a recreation. He took up with the Seniors 12 years after his 1973 retirement from the Niners and has won $645,609 on that medicine show - though his active participation has slowed to virtually nothing.

He played only six Senior stops last year, and none so far this year.

“I had a ticket for nine years on the Senior Tour,” he said, referring to what the PGA calls “fully exempt” status, the open-sesame to most tournaments. “Without one of those, you’re just spinning your wheels.

“I’ve got a bunch of grandkids and I see them. I have a couple of businesses and they take some time. And the rest of the time I love to play golf. It’s still my passion.”

The Senior Tour is getting younger every year, of course - each class of 50-year-olds making it tougher on the 60s. Brodie, meanwhile, has found an outlet for his passion on the Celebrity Golf Association, where he is hardly out of place among the ex-quarterbacks and relief pitchers and soap stars.

“It’s exceptional,” Brodie said of the CGA. “The Senior Tour had a wonderful appeal for a period of time, but the whole format has changed to where it’s a real competition. We’re kind of filling a gap, I think. These athletes are very appealing guys and while the competition can be intense, they aren’t.

“And they can play. About three years ago, only a few could break par. Now there’s 25 guys. At home, they’re shooting in the 60s consistently. Now, their tournament play needs honing, but they really hit it. You talk about beating it. My son-in-law, Chandler, they had a driving contest and he hit 350 yards.

“I know the air’s a little thin, but Grandpa ain’t hitting it 350.”

Yeah. But how well do their stories travel?

, DataTimes MEMO: You can contact John Blanchette by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 5509.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review