As an 18-year-old senior at Sabino High School, Willie Wood accepted the Conquistadores’ offer to play in the 1979 Tucson Open Pro-Am, an event of such magnitude that Wood found himself on the driving range with Willie Mays, Gerald Ford, Mo Udall and Yogi Berra.
“Jesse Owens was going to be in our group, but he got sick,” Wood said Friday. The nature of the event was such that Owens was replaced by Red Sox manager Don Zimmer.
So it’s not like the 58-year-old Wood has gone through his golf career awestruck or feeling he doesn’t belong.
The only Tucsonan ever to win back-to-back state championships — the No. 1 ranked American junior golfer during his Sabercats days — returned to that level Friday in the first round of the Cologuard Classic, shooting a 7-under 66.
He wasn’t just good, he was superb. Wood hit all 18 greens in regulation, which is golf’s version of a baseball perfect game.
Nothing like that is expected at any time in pro golf. It was especially impressive in that it was Wood’s first round on the PGA Tour Champions this season. It is also notable in that Wood is a year removed from a knee replacement.
The Conquistadores phoned Wood a week ago and offered him an exemption in the 78-man field — for the sake of a better story, you can accurately say Wood was probably the last man in the field — but it’s not like he was sitting by the phone, waiting for the call.
He actually planned to be at Omni Tucson National with or without a tee time, helping prepare and serve breakfast in the Conquistadores’ annual Buckelew breakfast, which has been a can’t-miss part of the pro golf tour in Tucson for decades.
“I’m glad I’m not working at Bucky’s,” he said with a laugh.
In the years since Wood left Tucson to play golf at Oklahoma State — the Cowboys won the 1980 NCAA championship with Wood playing an invaluable role — the man Golf Magazine once labeled “The King of Kids” has gone through a career that almost defies sanity.
He never did become the star so many expected. Wood won a single PGA Tour event in 20 years. He rescued his career when he came out of nowhere to win the 2012 Dick’s Sporting Goods Open, his first of two PGA Tour Champions victories.
But his golf career always seemed to pale after his first wife, Holly, tragically died of cancer in 1989, leaving him as a widower with two young children and a golf career that stalled.
When Wood approached the No. 13 green Friday at Tucson National, there was not a single person following the threesome of Wood, Greg Kraft and Dan Forsman. It was as quiet as a Monday afternoon round of golf at Crooked Tree Golf Course, which is where Wood often played during his formative days at Sabino.
The 1970s were the golden days of golf in Tucson, when a gifted group of Tucsonans like Wood, Jeff Kern, Armen Dirtadian, Rich Mueller, Dale Faulkner, Willie Kane, Larry Pagel, Mike Hultquist, Dennis Palmer and Tom Tatum put golf on the map.
Mueller is now the director of golf at Crooked Tree, a long 3-wood from Tucson National, and he remembers Wood as the certifiable star of that era.
“Willie was so much better than any of us,” Mueller remembers. “The great thing was, he raised the bar for us and we got better because we realized how much better he was. His work ethic was phenomenal. He spent hours and hours putting every day.”
It was a bit ironic Friday when Wood frequently pulled out a notebook full of distances and data on the Tucson National course. He knows that course better than perhaps any pro golfer on the planet. His father, the late Willard Wood, moved to Tucson from Shreveport, Louisiana, in the mid-1970s and did some of his work teaching golf at Tucson National.
Young Willie Wood became familiar with the course long before he played in his first Tucson Open as a pro in 1987.
But here’s what’s amazing: Wood’s 66 Friday is the best round he has ever shot in the Tucson Open, by any name. He has played 44 rounds of pro golf in Tucson; Friday’s round surpassed his previous low of 67, shot in the 1994 Northern Telecom Open on the same course.
He finished 29th that year and was paid $6,413.
“I’ve never done very good here,” he says. “When I was a kid, yeah, of course. I did well everywhere when I was a kid. Around town here, I’ve never contended at a Tucson Open, so I’m delighted at how I played today.”
There couldn’t be a better script this week than the long-ago junior golf star from Sabino High School winning the Cologuard Classic, wiping away tears as he puts the coveted Conquistadores helmet on his head Sunday afternoon.
“I think when you’re a kid you take it for granted,” Wood says. “You don’t realize that the opportunities aren’t going to be there that much. When you’re a kid, you think it’s going to happen all the time, you feel invincible.”
On Friday, Wood was invincible. At the 18th hole, long judged to be one of the most difficult on the tour, Wood hit his second shot about 225 yards to within 5 feet of the cup. He made the putt to put a bow on a sizzling 66.
The crowd roared. Willie Wood was back home.
