Steve Bergum Durgan recalls Lilac memories

Normally, this would be one of John Durgan’s busiest – but most enjoyable – days of the summer.

In years past, he would have answered a predawn alarm, showered, dressed, jumped in the golf cart parked outside his home that sits alongside the 15th fairway at The Fairways at West Terrace golf course and headed for his office in the clubhouse.

Once there, he might have tended to a few minor bookkeeping details before parking himself under a tree next to the No. 1 tee box, where he would spend the next several hours announcing the names and home courses of every participant as they prepared to hit their opening shots in the third round of the Lilac City Invitational golf tournament.

After the last player in the field had teed off, Durgan would have motored back to the clubhouse, donned an apron and taken his place in front of the grill on the back patio to start cooking burgers for the tournament’s traditional Saturday night barbecue and long-drive contest.

“It was always hectic, but it was always fun,” Durgan said earlier this week, when asked to look back on the once wildly popular 72-hole tournament that his late father, Joe, founded back 1960 when he was the head professional at Downriver Golf Course.

Sadly, today won’t be nearly as hectic – and probably not as much fun – for the 57-year-old Durgan, who, after being replaced as the director of golf and general manager at The Fairways earlier this year, announced that the Lilac City Invitational was ending its 47-year run.

“I wanted so bad to make it to 50,” said Durgan, who lost his job at The Fairways following an ownership change earlier this year. “But our family decided that if there was no longer a Durgan involved, there would be no more Lilac.”

The Durgans moved their tournament from Downriver to The Fairways when the course first opened in 1986. Early on, several family members were involved in the operation of the course, which they were leasing from absentee owner Charles Klar.

But after falling behind in payments, the Durgans lost their lease in 2002, when Dan Clark took it over and kept John Durgan on to continue handling the day-to-day operation of the course.

Durgan and his wife, Kathy, continued to run the Lilac City Invitational even after the family lost the lease to the course. But once the course changed ownership in late February and John lost his job, the region’s only 72-hole tournament was scratched.

Had it been continued, it would have started on Thursday and finished its four-day run Sunday.

Earlier this week, Durgan took time to sort through some of his favorite memories of the event – several of which involved his participation as an amateur.

He recalls, for instance, the hole-in-one MeadowWood head professional Bob Scott made on the 12th hole at Downriver in 1986. Durgan and his caddy, Jimmy Jensen, were waiting on the 13th tee box when Scott, who was playing as an amateur, landed his tee shot just short of the 12th green.

“The ball hopped up and rolled about 40 feet into the hole,” Durgan recalled.

Scott, who was reaching down to pick up his tee, never saw the ball go in.

“And when we all started screaming, he thought we were kidding him,” Durgan explained, adding that Scott’s ace on 12, along the deuce he made several years later on the par-5 fifth hole at The Fairways – from 251 out, no less – were probably the two best shots in the history of the Lilac.

Durgan also recalled several episodes with Jensen, his caddy, who made a habit out of loading his golf bag with Rainier Pounders prior to nearly every round.

“Jimmy had this thing about only looping for me until I reached par,” he explained. “As soon as I hit that number, whether it was on the 14th hole or the 18th hole, he would drop my bag and leave.

“Of course, he never left any of the Pounders in the bag.”

Durgan also recalled the day he was announcing players on the No. 1 tee and amateur Travis Phelps, after waiting for the green to clear in hopes of driving the par-4 opening hole at The Fairways, topped his drive and rolled it just to the front of the tee box.

One of the Phelps’ playing partners at the time was Zak Sargent.

“And after I announced Zak,” Durgan said, “he teed up his ball, nodded at Travis’ ball sitting about eight feet ahead of him and said, ‘Travis, would you mind marking that?’

“That’s just another moment I’ll never forget.”

Several of Durgan’s fondest Lilac memories involve his father, Joe, who once shot a round of 64 during the pro-am portion of the event at Downriver, despite making only pars on the last four holes.

“I told someone sitting near the 18th green that Dad was putting for a 63,” Durgan said. “The guys asked, ‘You mean for the team?’ And I told him, ‘No, for himself.’ “

Then there was the year at The Fairways, when the final group of the day finished after 9:30 p.m., with assistant pro and tournament director Kris Kallem following them down the 18th fairway in his car with the headlights on.

“We also had about a half-dozen cars sitting around the 18th green with their lights on so the final group could putt out,” Durgan said.

There were also the glory days of the tournament when several hundred people would show up – most of them to watch local favorite and six-time Lilac champion Chris Mitchell.

“He was, by far, the most popular golfer in the area,” Durgan said of Mitchell. “Every time Chris was in or near the lead, hundreds of people would come out to watch. We couldn’t even find places for everyone to park, because Chris was so popular.”

But Durgan’s favorite Lilac memory dates back to 1969 on the final day of the tournament when he and Kathy were sitting under the scoreboard at Downriver.

“Almost everyone was gone,” he recalled. “I was pretty much infatuated with Kathy at the time and, apparently, she had the hots for me, too, although I didn’t know it at the time.”

Durgan ended up asking the girl sitting next to him on a first date and she accepted, agreeing to accompany him to the drag races in Deer Park a few nights later.

The two have now been married 35 years.

And on Thursday morning, which would have normally marked the opening round of the 48th Lilac City Invitational, Durgan and his wife woke up early to play a round of golf.

They started on the 15th hole near their home, but when they reached the No. 1 tee, they lost it.

“I looked at that tree next the tee box and couldn’t help myself,” Durgan said. “I turned to Kathy and said, ‘Now on the tee, from Cheney, Wash., playing out of The Fairways … amateur John Durgan.’

“She looked at me and smiled. Then we both frowned and she walked over and gave me a big hug. We both knew it was over, and that things will never be the same.”