Weekend Wisdom: The Constant Photographer

For This Golfing Gal, A Picture Was Worth Much More Than A Thousand Words

The last time we chatted, I introduced a guy named Bill Thompson who photographs golf courses on a grand scale, using digital technology and decades of experience to produce eye-popping murals that are almost otherworldly in clarity and detail. The man — a non-golfer, ironically — thinks big, shoots big and dreams of a big payoff from collectors who just might pay a premium to hang a huge, colorful piece of Pebble Beach or Shinnecock Hills on their living room or boardroom wall.

Mary Lou Courtney photographed golf courses, too, but she didn’t think big. She thought personal, not caring a whit about reselling her images. Nor could she; all of them were most likely snapped with a Kodak point-and-shoot or perhaps a basic 35mm job. But where she slipped on quality, she soared on quantity. In fact, judging by the three large boxes and two paper bags that arrived at my office one day last fall, she took pictures of virtually every course she ever played — usually several holes on each course, which, according to her meticulous records, numbered north of 700.

Before the boxes and bags came a phone message. “I’m a friend of a gal who just passed away, and she was a big golfer,” the voice said. “Her husband says she kept all these photos of places she played — all over the West. Nevada, California, Oregon, Arizona, Hawaii. Now he doesn’t know what to do with all of them, so I thought of you guys. I don’t know if you can use them for anything, but I’ve got them if you want them.”

I returned the call and told the gent I’d take them. He showed up a couple of days later — a guy in his 70s helping Mary Lou’s husband divest himself of memories either too painful or too cumbersome to keep. He hauled them up the stairs to my office and piled them on a table, where they sat for several months while I decided just what the heck I would do with them.

I took a cursory tour of the boxes and bags. Inside was the most complete photographic chronicle of a golfer’s life I’ve ever seen, and probably ever will see. Mary Lou organized each box by state, and the photos within she staggered alphabetically by city (along with the hole number and date played) on row upon row of flip sheets, each in its own plastic cocoon. There’s room on each sheet for 25 photos, and she managed to fill most of them. She also kept clean, copious notes to back up the images — pages printed from a computer-generated notebook, each with the header “golf courses, where and when last played,” organized alphabetically by state and name. As near as I can tell, she hung up her spikes in 1995 after playing D’Arcy Ranch in Okotoks, Alberta, Canada. Or maybe she just quit keeping records after that. But I doubt it.

A few of Mary Lou’s photos are populated with friends, family and, I presume, herself, decked out in the garb of the time — Capri pants in the ’60s, lime-colored skirts and sleeveless blouses in the ’70s, a variety of shorts, sweaters and such in the ’80s and ’90s. Four decades’ worth of fashion and golf fanaticism, played out from the lowest point in the United States (Furnace Creek in Death Valley), to the granite heights of the Sierra and Rockies, with stops in every temperate zone in between and several forays to the East Coast and elsewhere. The life of one golfer on film and paper, fading slowly yet lovingly stored in these little cardboard tombs. And that’s all I know of her.

Not that I didn’t try to get more acquainted with a woman whose passion for a silly game was rivaled only by an accountant’s fever for detail. My journalist’s mind told me to dig for more info, but my lame, disorganized alter ego got in the way. When Mary Lou’s friend showed up at my office, I took his name down but have since lost the note, so I couldn’t follow up with him for more information. The phone book yielded a few Courtneys in Sparks, where she lived, but apparently none were related because they didn’t return my calls. I couldn’t even track down her widower. I Googled. Nada. Searched West Coast golf association websites. Zilch. It was just me, the boxes, the photos and a whole lot of unanswered questions.

Certain facts jumped out at me, however. Could this woman play? Oh, yeah. Among the boxes of photos was a smaller box — the packaging, clearly of early 1960s vintage, for one of those scoring caddies you attach to the handle of a pull-cart. Inside Mary Lou had stuffed yet more travel treasure: Colorfully embroidered patches from dozens of golf courses — the kind you’ll find on caps and shirts, but seldom sold separately these days — and several gold plates, obviously pried from golf club trophies, engraved with various competitive achievements ranging from “Chicken of the Sea Fall Tournament Low Net” in 1972 and “Victoria Women’s Golf Club Match Play, 1st Flight Consolation” in 1970 to “VPWGC Presidents Cup, 3rd Place A Flight” in 1969 and “Low Putts” in 1972. A Flight? 1st Flight? Mary Lou knew her way around a niblick. Could be she was quite the kegler, too; mixed in with the golf plaques are a few bowling accolades from Cove Bowl, maybe the one in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. At least I assume Cove Bowl is an alley and not a golf course. I’m working on pure conjecture here … and Mary Lou’s list, of course.

But wait a minute! A clue! Victoria Golf Club! But which one? I Googled again. Up came the 110-year-old “Canadian Pebble Beach” at the south end of Vancouver Island, where the likes of Harry Vardon, Byron Nelson, Joyce Wethered, Babe Didrikson Zaharias, Ben Hogan, Sam Snead and Mike Weir played over the years. Could be the place, I guess. Probably not the Victoria Golf Club in Australia — which hosted the Australian Open a few years back — though I can’t be sure. Neither of these private tracks is on the list; the only Victoria she apparently played (on Oct. 28, 1982) was a muni in Carson, Calif., which doesn’t look like the kind of place that would host a Presidents Cup, though it’s definitely her type of track. As in public. As in a course inveterate golf travelers can afford to play if they’re in the neighborhood. Or perhaps she could afford to play anywhere she liked, and simply preferred to hone her game with the hoi polloi. I have no idea.

In fact, I’m running out of ideas of how to get closer to Mary Lou Courtney, to extend her life beyond the out-of-bounds markers. The mystery deepens, and the more I think about it, the deeper it gets.

So as I again dive headlong into Mary Lou’s photos with fading hopes of getting a clue, I’ll allow my imagination to take hold just a little, but with as little embellishment as possible. I’ll think of her as either childless, and therefore possessed of vast amounts of free time to feed her habit, or such a keen schedule-keeper that she could juggle her jones for golf and family obligations with equal aplomb.

Either way she soaked up life and loved the road, and took the time and effort to put her travels into tidy little boxes, perhaps meant for some friend or family member’s edification or enjoyment, perhaps not. Maybe they were just meant for her, and now that she’s gone, they’re orphans. Simple as that.

I can’t say I’ll keep her photos forever, tugging at the sleeves of my curiosity, begging me to find them a permanent home. But I can say they’ve not yet worn out their welcome. There are too many more stories to hear through Mary Lou’s shutter-clicks, more courses to explore — hundreds of which I’d never heard of before she came into my life, and believe me, I’ve played a lot of golf in the West. Still she makes me look like a piker, a cheap imitation of a true golf addict. I’ve gotta step it up.

She’s taught me something else, too: Renewed respect for the game and how lucky we are to have it. Mary Lou Courtney respected it enough to make it the central narrative of her life, and that’s a worthy goal for any golfer of any handicap, sex or social position. Hell, it’s why I write about golf for a living. But words only go so far. She knew it, and I know it. So from now on, I’ll be sure to pack a camera with my pen. Or at least pay better attention when I’m out there on the fairways of America.
Thanks, Mary Lou. Send us a postcard from hacker heaven, will ya? FG