Man on a mission

Bryce Alderton

If he can, Ed Susolik tries to squeeze in 1 1/2 hours of putting at

Costa Mesa Golf & Country Club in the remaining hints of twilight

after days often filled with meetings and teaching sessions at USC

that come with being an attorney and college professor.

The 41-year-old Newport Beach resident with a family that includes

a wife and three children tries to practice twice a week and play

once a week, if time allows

For Susolik, a professional golfer for three years during the

mid-1990s, playing golf every day isn’t feasible, yet for a man who

has claimed the Public Links Golf Association of Southern California

Amateur championship along with winning five tournaments in two

seasons on the Golden State Tour, a professional mini-tour, the time

couldn’t be more right.

“I’m playing better than I ever have in my life,” said Susolik,

who also competed in 12 tournaments on the European Challenge Tour

during his three-year stint as a professional from 1992-’95. “I can’t

fully explain it. It doesn’t make a lot of sense. Maybe it’s because

I’m so busy at work and so busy at home ... that the time spent on

the golf course doesn’t have many stresses or worries. It makes it

easy to focus and enjoy myself. I try not to have any bad days at the

golf course.”

Susolik, a partner in a 23-attorney law firm who graduated from

USC in 1986 with three bachelor’s degrees -- in history, philosophy

and English -- before earning a law degree from USC in 1990, was a

bit miffed, though, after he shot 75 and missed qualifying for

October’s United States Mid-Amateur.

But the man who coaches a soccer team, among many other activities

he and his children share in, realizes the competition he faces from

the up-and-coming crop of Southern California golfers.

“Southern California has the strongest amateur golfers in the

world,” said Susolik, who was born in Czechoslovakia and spent his

final two years of high school in Madrid, Spain.

Susolik took up the game at age 10, played with Seve Ballesteros a

month after the famed Spaniard won the Masters in 1980.

Susolik moved to Los Angeles the same year to attend USC and made

the school’s varsity team, but wasn’t a regular among the starting

five, which included Brian Henninger, a two-time PGA Tour winner.

From 1985 to 1990, Susolik didn’t touch a golf club. Instead, he

focused on improving his grades to get into law school.

The grades changed from Bs to As and Susolik earned his law

degree, but the time away from golf gnawed at him.

Itching for a return to the game, Susolik and wife Andrea moved

into her parents’ Newport Beach home for 1 1/2 years so Ed could

save enough money to enter golf’s “minor leagues.”

Once his savings account swelled enough, Susolik altered his

sleeping habits and steered away from caffeinated beverages to ensure

his body would be at its peak for those early-morning tournaments.

For the first three years in the professional ranks, his body held

up. Then a herniated disk that required surgery in 1994 merely

preceded the diagnosis in early 1995 that Susolik had testicular

cancer.

“I had [rehabilitated my back] better than it ever was,” Susolik

said. “I told [partners at the law firm] that I would go back on

tour. In March [of 1995] I was winding down cases and two weeks

later, I was diagnosed.”

Physicians caught the cancer in its early stages and performed

surgery to remove the tumor.

Susolik asked partners at the firm if he could rescind his notice.

They accepted and Susolik resumed handling cases while undergoing

chemotherapy treatment for two months.

Chemotherapy, like it often does, took a physical toll on

Susolik’s immune system. He would often go into work at night to

avoid catching germs during daytime hours. The smell from a hospital

was enough to make him vomit.

His muscles weakened, contributing to Susolik losing 35 pounds

with the treatment.

With his oldest daughter Lindsey reaching six months old at the

time -- she is now 9 -- along with a withered body, the content

Susolik relinquished his professional status.

“It was not the best idea to keep playing golf in the minor

leagues,” he said.

Susolik, though, doesn’t consider the cancer a negative.

“I look at it as incredibly empowering,” Susolik said. “I adjusted

my dream in a different way.”

.Susolik spends a lot of practice time putting these days and

prefers keeping golf in its simplest terms.

“I don’t try to change much. I’ve had the same swing for five

years now,” said Susolik, winner of seven club championships in the

last six years, including two Costa Mesa men’s titles.

Among his 15 tournament appearances this year, Susolik finished

second in both the Southern California Public Links Amateur

championship, which he won in 2001, along with the Oceanside city

championship.

He considers his 1-over-par 75 on the during the final round of

the Public Links “one of the best rounds he’s ever played.”

“It was the weekend after Easter and it was freezing,” Susolik

recalled. “It was somehow the second-best round of the day.”

Susolik hasn’t needed much explanation for his play. He lets it do

the talking.