Terry Mayes just can’t let go of golf.
When an ulnar nerve injury threatened to mothball her clubs, Mayes came back with the help of a club duct tapped to her hand.
After failing to make the cut at the Senior Women’s Amateur Tournament held at CordeValle recently, she wanted to not even think about golf for a while.
That lasted all of a couple days.
It wasn’t long before Mayes got the itch and went looking for a tool to help improve her game: A lighter driver.
“My greatest weakness in my game came down to my driver,” Mayes said after the tournament. “I struggled when I got too tired to hit in manner I find acceptable.”
Not playing to your standards in a tournament is enough for frustrate a golfer, but Mayes’ biggest display of emotion didn’t come from her play, it came from those who cheered her on swing after swing.
“You don’t get these opportunities often, and I won’t get another one for sure, unless they come back to West Coast because puppies are priorities,” Mayes said as tears flooded her eyes. “To have my mom, who’s going to be 79, and my sister came up (from Los Angeles) and all the ladies I play golf with, they come out and are so supportive, thick or thin, it means a lot. … They ache with you, every moment that you are frustrated, they feel it with you.”
On Saturday, Mayes’ supporters had to brave a constant onslaught of showers. The whole time, with umbrellas out and windbreakers on, the group of nearly 10 people walked — or rode scooters — all 18 holes with Mayes.
“They endured a lot today,” Mayes said. “To say that about this group that came out and endured these ugly conditions, nothing on this card or what happened out there, can overshadow that support.”
The ensuing week was a whirlwind of travel across the Bay Area as she juggled looking for a new driver, getting used to the club and taking a dog to a vet. On Friday, she got up early in the morning, drove to San Francisco and points in between and didn’t pull into her driveway until well after 8 p.m.
Still, for as bad as Mayes felt this last week, she still very nearly pulled off a turnaround that could have sent her to a 64-woman match-play tournament.
“I got bumped when very last group came in,” Mayes said.
Mayes was 21 over through two days of the tournament and on the bubble for the final spot in the match play rounds that determined the ultimate winner.
She said she didn’t want to stay, having played the early start, but was over ruled by family.
“My sister, God love her, wanted to sit and watch. She believed the whole way,” Mayes said. “She really thought I could get in.”
When the final scores were posted, Mary Petrovich and Ellie Layton had shot 20 over and were tied for 63rd.
Mayes was the odd woman out.
She said she was disappointed, but Mayes said she knew from the beginning moving on was going to be hard, especially shooting 13 over in the opening round thanks to a couple of bad tee shots that led to a double and triple bogey. She said had either hole gone differently that day, or if she had even played one hole a little better Sunday, she might have forced either a three-way tie for the last spot or captured 63rd out right.
Mayes said the difference in these big tournaments comes down to players who are able to recover quickly after hitting a bad shot.
“When you hit bad shot, the key in qualifying is not letting it develop into a double or triple (bogey). I have to salvage bogie, at worst.”
The conditions at the first Saturday at CordeValle were less than ideal. Mayes played pretty consistent on Saturday, even though the greens were playing slower than the practice rounds.
Mayes said during practice, she was dialing in her putts to where she could get longer attempts to within a respectable two feet or less for an easy tap in.
But thanks to the rain, some of those putts that would have been a good speed the day before stopped well short of the hole and led to several two and three putts.
A repeat champion
It was a different story for Ellen Port, who successfully defended her USGA Sr. Women’s title she won last year.
Port emerged from the open stroke play qualifiers tied for 17th at 12 over. She recovered from an 8 over 80 the first day to shoot 4 over 76 the second.
Port battled in the round of 64, twice overcoming a one-hole deficit to Lisa Smego of Washington to advance to the round of 32.
She fell behind just one more time through the next five rounds, when she dropped the first hole of the semi-finals to Mary Jane Hiestand of Florida.
Mayes had the utmost respect for what Port accomplished.
“Kudos to her. I think it’s fabulous that she can play that level of golf,” Mayes said.
