Making themselves at home

Mathis Winkler

At 9 a.m. Thursday, as South Coast Plaza lay still except for

maintenance workers cleaning the fountains and mail delivery guys making

their rounds, the better halves of 19 professional players at the Toshiba

Senior Classic settled down for a fancy breakfast at St. John Knits

boutique. And golf was the last thing on their minds.

“We don’t get to do this every week,” said Wendy Fleisher, wife to

Bruce. She arranged the outing, which included a tour of St. John’s

Irvine factory, through personal connections. Marie Gray, Fleisher’s

friend and the company’s founder, dropped by for some coffee.

Nibbling on fruit platters and spinach mushroom wraps, the women

seemed to enjoy checking out the latest fashions, presented by several

models who gracefully floated around the tables. A beige two-piece

pantsuit solicited some of the biggest cheers.

While describing the fashion breakfast as “very special,”

extracurricular activities are nothing new to golf players’ wives. At

Newport Beach’s Toshiba event, they also had the option of signing up for

computer classes. When in New York, a Broadway show’s often organized and

another tournament offers free physicals.

Because some of the women spend the better part of 10 months annually

crisscrossing the country with their husbands in tow, the need for

diversion exists. Besides, life near the greens is not all that

glamorous, they said.

“You sometimes just want to go home and say, ‘This is my table. This

is my chair,”’ said Carolyn Dougherty, who keeps a home base in

Philadelphia with her husband, Ed.

The wives get creative to deal with the problem of rarely seeing their

home. Bills get paid by direct debit and some, such as Fleisher, hire

assistants to oversee the household.

Laundry’s a tough one. Hotels can take care of dry cleaningitems and

sometimes washing machines are at hand.

But “you can’t send everything to the laundry,” Dougherty said, adding

that some players send dirty clothes overnight to their wives at home.

Speaking of clothing, there’s only so much the women can take along.

Lea Thompson, married to Leonard, once explained the situation to her

daughter in simple terms.

“One suitcase,” she said. “That’s my life.”

Others are a little more extravagant. Fleisher needs at least two

bags, preferably three.

“The only fight we have is that I can’t get it down to less than three

suitcases,” she said, joining others around the table in complaining

jokingly about their husbands’ heavy golf equipment that gets tagged

along.

“And we buy,” Fleisher said, adding that the shipments of clothes that

arrive at home create a Christmas-like atmosphere every couple of months.

But that’s the easy part. Managing a family poses more problems,

Fleisher said.

“You can get an assistant to take care of business,” she said. “But

you can’t get an assistant to take care of your family.”

The mother of a 20-year-old daughter, Fleisher stayed at home in Palm

Beach, Fla., for a while. She also made a deal with her husband that he

couldn’t stay away for more than three weeks at a time. The cellular

phones PGA officials give out to the women help to stay in touch with

family, Fleisher said.

Thompson said one of her grandchildren has never actually been to her

Florida home.

“He thinks I live in hotels,” she said, laughing.

But staying at home for too long isn’t an option, either.

“After two weeks, I’m ready to go,” Thompson said. On tour, “you don’t

have to keep the yard up, you don’t have to keep the house up.”

Constantly traveling from one city to another, Thompson gladly

revealed her personal pastime passion.

“I spend all [my free time] at the malls,” she said. “I know all the

malls. And Newport Beach has some of the best shopping in the world.”

In many ways, the golfers’ wives -- some of whom have accompanied

their husbands for several decades -- came to rely on their fellow

travelers for friendship.

“My husband’s done this so long,” Thompson said. “I don’t know that

many quote-unquote normal people.”

The women have even formed their own nonprofit organization, the

Senior Tour Wives Assn. Over the years, the group has raised about $2

million for children’s and women’s causes, said Fleisher, who serves as

the organization’s president.

When someone gets sick, others jump in to help.

“This is my family,” Dougherty said.

Many, such as Walter Morgan’s wife, Geraldine, who used to work as a

special education needs counselor, have ended careers to be with their

husbands.

“I gave up my life for this,” Morgan said. “You’re here because you

want to be with your husband. You have to love it. You have to want to do

this.”

The fact that their husbands compete against each other never clouds

the women’s relationships.

“The ones [whose husbands] play well -- we don’t talk to them,”

confided one of the women with a laugh.

But there will always be winners and losers. And families depend on

it.

“Everyone of our husbands is competing against each other’s husband

for our living,” Fleisher said, turning to a model standing nearby. “Is

that a dress or two pieces?”