Back in the swing

BRYCE ALDERTON

Muffin Spencer-Devlin is slowly regaining the urge to return to a

game she walked away from four years ago.

She is also eager to start living again.

The last four years haven’t been easy for the former LPGA Tour

player, who now resides in Laguna Beach and who chaired a charity

golf tournament that raised $21,000 last month at Mesa Verde Country

Club in Costa Mesa.

There was the constant struggle with manic depression, or bipolar

disorder, an imbalanced thyroid and the remnants of a 10-year

relationship that broke apart.

In 2000, after 21 years and three LPGA Tour victories,

Spencer-Devlin had had enough.

She walked away from the tour and said goodbye to golf.

Four years later, she still wrestles with the decision to walk

away from a game she began playing at age 5.

“I still don’t know why I walked away, but it was a relief,” said

Spencer-Devlin, the honorary chairman of the Mental Health Classic at

Mesa Verde, which raised $21,000 for H.O.M.E.S. Inc., a nonprofit

with a small office in Newport Beach that provides housing for people

suffering from persistent mental distress. Homes or apartments have

been provided in Fullerton, Orange, Anaheim and Midway City.

Spencer-Devlin, 50, was first diagnosed with manic depression 30

years ago and takes medication to lessen its effects. The disease

causes sufferers to have severe and unexpected fluctuations in mood.

The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that more than

two million adults suffer from manic depression.

For Spencer-Devlin, the disease was at an all-time high at the end

of 1999.

“I had a manic episode at the end of 1999, going into 2000. It was

one of the worst ones I’ve ever had,” Spencer-Devlin said.

With that, golf became a distant speck on her radar, the furthest

thought.

“I really haven’t played golf since,” she said. “The only contact

with the golf world I’ve had is the golf tournament.”

For the last seven years, Spencer-Devlin has been the tournament’s

honorary chairman after Bill Hagerman, the founder, died in an car

accident involving a drunk driver.

“I was looking for a charity that was specific inside the mental

health field and didn’t care which one as long as it provided for the

mentally ill,” Spencer-Devlin said. “It seemed like a great match.”

Helen Cameron, executive director of H.O.M.E.S. Inc., is in her

fifth year with the organization and has seen Spencer-Devlin fight

through the tough times and embrace the pleasurable ones.

“She has been so ill, she actually went to the hospital and, other

years, like this year, I’m very pleased to see her on her

medication,” Cameron said. “We’ve seen, over the years, her stable

one moment and at different times she hasn’t been. It is a lesson to

many participants of the dramatic impacts the illness can bring.”

To say the last four years have been a struggle would be putting

it mildly.

Two months ago, Spencer-Devlin didn’t know what she wanted to do.

“The last four years I struggled to find my legs in the real

world,” said Spencer-Devlin, who lives with her mother Patricia.

It was Patricia who gave her daughter a pep-talk, if you will, two

months ago.

“She sat me down and said, ‘You need to get a job,’ ”

Spencer-Devlin recalled, laughing. “That was a big part of it right

there.”

A golf course, of all things, came to mind and Spencer-Devlin has

her compass creeping in that direction. She wants to teach the swing.

She has only golfed once -- about two years ago -- in the four

years since she stepped away from the tour.

“My swing, when I left the tour, was better that it had ever been

in my entire career,” Spencer-Devlin said. “Because of Jamie Mulligan

[head pro at Virginia Country Club in Long Beach], I feel I know

enough about the actual mechanics of the swing to teach it.”

Spencer-Devlin went through a swing overhaul she credits Mulligan

with instilling, shortly before retiring.

It has started with a few friends and Spencer-Devlin is in

negotiations with different facilities to set up a teaching schedule,

hoping to build a substantial client list.

Her thyroid has stabilized and she eagerly awaits analyzing the

golf swing.

“It’s only since the thyroid problem have I considered teaching as

a career,” Spencer-Devlin said. “My dream is to teach [golf part

time]. Teaching golf is more realistic than painting, but there is a

certain Zen-like and rehabilitative quality to painting.”

Muffin, whose real name is Helene, paints the inside of homes for

a contractor and recently began working five days a week. Her

grandmother coined the name “Muffin,” after noticing the marks on

Spencer-Devlin’s forehead at birth resembled those on a muffin when

released from a pan.

Life for Spencer-Devlin is slowly regaining a sweet scent.

“In terms of my self-esteem and self-worth, it was embarrassing to

me that for 21 years on tour I thought, ‘If you can’t juggle six

balls, you’re not going to make it,’ ” Spencer-Devlin said. “I

haven’t been able to juggle any balls the last two years. I forgot

how to get along. Because of this teaching thing and painting

contractor, I am beginning to earn a living again. I didn’t earn a

living the previous four years.”

Welcome back Muffin!

*

Steve Rhorer added a second senior club championship trophy to his

mantle after shooting rounds of 71-76 -- 147 at Mesa Verde Country

Club April 3-4 to win the gross division title.

Rhorer, a longtime Costa Mesa resident, won Mesa Verde’s men’s

club championship in 2002 and teamed with head pro Tom Sargent in

last year’s Jones Cup. The duo finished one stroke behind Will Tipton

and Bob Lovejoy from Big Canyon Country Club.

Rhorer won 11 club championships at Virginia Country Club in Long

Beach.

Ken Passon won the net division in a one-hole playoff over John

Steinmeyer. Passon parred the first hole of the sudden-death playoff.

He shot 69-74 -- 143.

Here are other gross and net winners from different age groups:

50-59 gross -- Dale Willetts, net -- Bryan Rolfe; 60-69 gross -- Dave

Tanchuck, net -- Steinmeyer; 70-79 gross -- Gordon Cannon, net --

Hank Aihara; 80-89 gross -- Al Wells, net -- Bird Cross.