Golf:

I don’t know about you, but if I had tied a course record at a golf course, I would be telling everyone that would stand still long enough to listen.

Heck, if I get a birdie during a round, the check-out woman at my grocery store hears about it. Put two pars in a row during a round and I am begging our sports editor, Steve Virgen, to put it in the newspaper.

But John Weber is going all Greta Garbo regarding his eight-under-par 63 that he shot recently at the North Course at Pelican Hill Golf Club. The score tied a 63 that Jack Nicklaus shot during the 2000 Hyundai Team Matches.

According to Weber’s wife, Jaime, who seems to be more excited about the feat than her husband, Weber has been playing Pelican Hill with friends for nearly 12 years on a weekly basis.

The Newport Beach resident has had two holes-in-one at Pelican, but didn’t have an ace during his low scoring round.

Weber is a Gold golf member at Pelican Hill, and was playing with Randy Berg, Steve Goon and Doug Lincoln.

The scratch golfer had a run of seven consecutive birdies from No. 2 to No. 8. He added another birdie and had a bogey.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” is the only thing Weber would say when contacted on the phone.

It would have been nice to have heard about the seven consecutive birdies.

Were there any long putts?

Did he chip in from off the green?

How did he make the bogey?

When guys like us hear about a guy like Weber, we want to know every detail about the round.

Most of us are never going to sniff a course record. We live through those who do. They have a duty to tell us. Otherwise we start to wonder if the round ever really happened at all.

Pelican Hill General Manager, Steve Friedlander is pretty certain that it did.

“He called me from the middle of the round and asked what they had to do for a course record,” Friedlander said. “I told him he had to hole every putt, follow the rules.”

Apparently he did.

“He’s a legit player,” Friedlander said. “I trust they played by the rules. He’s a good guy.”

But is it a course record?

Weber did play from the black tees and the course is 200 yards longer with more bunkers since the recent Tom Fazio redesign.

Nicklaus though did his round in a competitive setting, granted it was a Silly Season event.

“In my mind it’s a great score, but is it a course record?” Friedlander said. “Whenever you set up a course for a PGA Tour event it’s going to be a very different course.”

Friedlander makes a good point. There are plenty of differences when a course is set up for a professional tournament.

The fairways are tighter, the rough higher, the pins in tougher locations and the greens faster.

But Friedlander is still impressed with the feat, he put it in an e-mail that is sent to members of Pelican Hill’s preferred program.

“This was a great round,” Friedlander said. “He should be honored for what he did.”

I wanted to, but it’s tough when the person who accomplished the feat is reluctant to talk about it. So if you know Weber or meet him, bring him out of his shell and ask him about the round only most of us dream of shooting.

JOHN REGER’S golf column appears Thursdays. He may be reached by e-mail at nolimepublishing@aol.com or by regular mail at P.O. Box 2984, Seal Beach, CA 90740.