Golf: Course record (61)

Richard Dunn

NEWPORT BEACH - Golf professional Ted Norby, a 1982 Corona del Mar

High graduate and former UC Irvine standout, broke the course record

Sept. 19 at Newport Beach Country Club with a 10-under-par 61.

Norby, playing with local pros Eric Woods and Dave Donnellan, a former

assistant pro at Newport Beach, shot 31-30--61 to break Hale Irwin’s 62,

carded in the final round of the 1998 Toshiba Senior Classic on the

Senior PGA Tour.

Irwin’s 62, which included the Famous Bunker Rake Shot at 17 and

shattered the previous course record of 64 held by several players,

remains as the tournament course record at Newport Beach, a 6,598-yard

layout.

But the 37-year-old Norby, who made 11 birdies and one bogey (at No.

5), etched his name in the Newport Beach record book.

Norby, a teaching pro at Aviara Golf Academy in Carlsbad, based at the

Four Seasons Resort Aviara, first thought about the course record when he

sank a 20-foot birdie putt at No. 12 to go to 6-under.

“I was thinking about what holes I had left, and, obviously if I make

four birdies I have a chance,” Norby said, “especially with the two

reachable par-5s coming in (15 and 18).”

Norby, a former Canadian Tour pro who played in the Newport Classic

Pro-Am at Newport Beach in 1989 and ‘90, once shot 64 at Big Canyon

Country Club and carded 64 a few times in competition. “But never lower

than 8-under and never lower than 64,” he said.

Norby opened his round with four straight birdies, then bogeyed the

toughest hole on the golf course, the 455-yard par-4 No. 5. He birdied

the par-3 No. 8 to go back to 4-under.

“I hit (my tee shot) three feet (to the flag on No. 8), and (Norby)

hits it two feet,” said Woods, who finished 4-under 67, but well off the

winning pace. “I birdied seven and I’m thinking I’m going to kick

(Norby’s butt), because I was only two back.”

As it turns out, Norby was simply warming up following his sizzling

4-under 31 on the front nine, because he made six birdies and three pars

on the back.

After birdies at 11 and 12, Norby birdied 15 and 16, which he said was

the key to his course record, because he recovered from a mediocre tee

shot by hitting a 5-iron to within two feet of the pin.

Norby followed with birdies at 17 and 18 to close out his memorable

round.

Woods, a member at Newport Beach and owner of The Golf Lab, said he

immediately made Norby come to his indoor facility in Costa Mesa to have

his swing videotaped and analyzed.

“Now I’m using Ted Norby (as an example) instead of Tiger (Woods),” he

quipped.

Norby said he made “three bad swings all day” and enjoyed such tunnel

vision at the end that he never flinched going for the pin at 17, the

difficult par-3 over a large bunker and lake.

“The water and sand trap never even came into my mind,” Norby said.

“When you’re swinging that well and hitting that well, you don’t see

trouble.”

While Irwin still holds the tournament course record, a 61 no doubt

gives members of the Senior Tour something to shoot for next March.

“Under tournament conditions, obviously, it’s a different ballgame,”

NBCC President Jerry Anderson said. “But it doesn’t lower what (Norby)

has done. It was a great round of golf, but it’s not like the Toshiba

Senior Classic. There’s a little more pressure when you’re under

tournament stress than just out there shooting it with the boys. But I’m

not knocking it. It was a fantastic round of golf and he should be

commended for it.”