It’s No Surprise Maestro’s Handy With Putter, Too

Professional golfers are a bunch of babies. They fall completely apart with any little cough, any little click of a shutter, any little blast of Mozart on tubas.

But not us.

We were 128 golfers at Manito Golf and Country Club on Monday, and we proved beyond a doubt that a person can hit a perfectly fine golf shot even during a French horn crescendo.

We were participating in something called “Swing with the Maestro” golf tournament, a fund raiser for the Spokane Symphony. At $100 per person, it promised to be an excellent fund-raising idea.

You don’t find people dropping $100 at a bake sale, do you? Which may prove only that baked-good consumers have more sense than golfers, but I digress from the main point: At what other golf tournament will you find a brass ensemble ensconced near the 10th tee?

As a non-professional golfer, I found I actually performed better while accompanied by the Spokane Symphony’s brass section, or maybe I should call it the brassie section. Anyway, when I was on the 10th tee I begged them to let out a big tuba-blast just as I started my downswing, on the theory that something loud and Mahler-like would impel my golf ball even farther down the fairway.

They declined, probably out of an unwillingness to give me an unfair advantage. If they blew ITAL my UNITAL ball 400 yards down the fairway, they’d have to do it for everyone. So, without benefit of Beethoven, I crushed my usual wicked slice 130 yards into the trees.

Did I say trees? Actually, I meant that I hit it into the “Pines of Rome.” All of the holes had classical music names, and true aficionados would immediately recognize this title as one of Respighi’s greatest hits. Another hole was named “Tales From the Vienna Woods” (Strauss), and I am delighted to report that I fulfilled a lifelong dream by paying a lengthy visit to those woods, also.

The music wasn’t the only unique thing about this event. In what other tournament, I ask you, is there a “designated putter” who also happens to be an internationally recognized symphony conductor?

That’s right, Maestro Fabio Mechetti spent the day at one of the par-threes, putter in hand. If you missed your putt, the maestro attempted to sink one from the same spot. If he made it, it counted.

Turns out, Fabio must be one of the hottest-putting conductors since Arturo (“Chi Chi”) Toscanini, because he made a 70-foot putt that day. For our twosome, of course, he missed, but that’s understandable considering we were 80 feet away and had to go up one hill, down another, across a side slope and through a working windmill.

I should have guessed Mechetti is an accomplished golfer - anybody who can do what he can do with a baton should be a wizard with a Great Big Bertha.

Further down the course, Kelly Farris awaited on one of the long par-fives (was it the “Gotterdammerung”?), offering his services as “designated driver.” If you paid $5 in advance, he would hit your drive. One member of our group anted up the money, but frankly, I didn’t think it was worth it.

Here is a reconstruction of my thought processes:

Farris is the concertmaster of the Spokane Symphony. He’s a violin-player, for heaven’s sake. Am I really going to pony up good money to let a fiddle-player hit my drive?

For that kind of money, I want a double-bass player, or one of those guys who pound on the tympanies … (slight pause as I watch Farris launch a beauty 280 yards straight down the fairway) … and by the way, here’s my $5, Mr. Farris.

I later heard he made over $400 for the symphony, hitting drives. Now that’s what I call making beautiful music.

This whole event (staged by the Spokane Symphony Association and supported by Merrill Lynch and Co.) raised $10,000 for the symphony. Obviously, they’re going to do it again next year.

You can’t raise that much money with a bake sale, even if Mechetti and Farris guest star as “designated kneaders.”

, DataTimes MEMO: To leave a message on Jim Kershner’s voice-mail, call 459-5493. Or send e-mail to jimk@spokesman.com, or regular mail to Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Jim Kershner The Spokesman-Review