by Tod Leonard - San Diego Union TribunePat Perez started picking balls off the Torrey Pines driving range when he was 13 years old.
At the same time, his future coach,
Michael Owen, was a college kid working behind the counter at the range's shack restocking the buckets of balls.
And Perez's high school buddy and future caddie,
Mike Hartford, was hitting those range balls with his dad, who'd hooked him on the game by putting him on Torrey Pines for the first round of his life.
At the U.S. Open this week, there will be stories told of Tiger Woods' heroics on the South Course and Phil Mickelson's high school matches there, but the top two players in the world and everybody else in the field are merely houseguests when compared to the Torrey Trio.
Perez, Owen and Hartford have truly lived and breathed all of what it means to have grown up on this once-hardscrabble and now-spectacular muni course. If they were any more grounded at Torrey Pines, they'd have roots for feet and pinecones dangling from their ears.
"Between the three of us, you can't even count how many rounds have been played here," Perez was saying yesterday as he hit wedge shots in the practice area on what usually is the North Course's 18th green. "And the great thing about Torrey is that it still feels the same. The trees are the same, the wind always blows the same.
"Even right now, it doesn't feel like a major to me. It just feels like Torrey always does."
He shrugged.
"It's home."
If Perez, the 55th-ranked player in the world, were to triumph in the U.S. Open this week for his first victory in a 6 1/2 -year PGA Tour career, he could join Francis Ouimet as the greatest homeboy ever to win an Open. As a kid, Ouimet sneaked onto The Country Club in Brookline, Mass., across the street from his house to scour for balls in the rough, and a few years later he changed American golf by capturing the 1913 Open at 20.
Perez spent much of his childhood in the beach town of Cardiff, just a short drive north of Torrey up Highway 101. His dad took him to hit balls at Torrey Pines when Pat was 11, and Tony Perez would eventually become the first-tee announcer for the Buick Invitational.
"They'll bury him on that first tee," Pat joked recently.
Pat went to work on the range at 13 when he started high school at Torrey Pines High.
He drove the caged rig that scooped up the balls, stacked the plastic baskets and hustled carts around. In return, he got minimum-wage pay and all the golf he could play in the early mornings or late afternoons. He had the job all through high school.
"It was my hangout," Perez, 32, said. "What a better place to hang out than here? There were a lot of older guys, and they were all like big brothers to me. It was cool."
Owen, a Welshman who had come to America to play golf at USIU (now Alliant University), was a friend and mentor to Perez long before he became his coach. He'd pick up Perez at 2 in the morning, and they'd doze in his tiny car so they could get in line at Torrey to play.
All along, Owen knew he was seeing a special talent in Perez.
"He didn't know how good he was," Owen said. "He could hit shots that I could never hit. He'd have these impossible shots, and he hit them like they were easy."
A standout player in San Diego Junior Golf, Perez took a huge step in the 1993 Junior World at Torrey Pines. He shot three 69s in four rounds on the old South Course, and on the last day workers from all over the grounds - greenskeepers, starters, teaching pros - formed a gallery of more than 60 to cheer on "their kid." He beat his closest pursuer by three shots and Woods, who had won six Junior Worlds, by eight.
"It wasn't about beating Tiger back then," Perez said. "I just wanted to win on my home course."
In the gallery that day cheering was Mike Hartford, who was a year ahead of Perez in school. As the only two muni players on a Torrey Pines High team of country club kids, they formed an immediate bond.
Hartford had become a fine player after his dad, Lloyd, an avid member of the Torrey Pines men's club, had introduced him to golf in 1988 with a round on Torrey North. Mike shot 126, and a year later he was breaking 80.
Hartford, 33, was the NCAA Div. III Freshman Player of the Year in 1994 while playing at UCSD, and in 2000 he won his own coveted trophy on Torrey South - the San Diego City Amateur.
Hartford qualified later that summer for U.S. Amateur at Baltusrol, and it was Perez who convinced him in 2001 to take a shot at Monday qualifiers on the Nationwide Tour.
The hook: Perez would caddie for him.
Hartford made five unsuccessful attempts, and they eventually reversed roles, but the experience left a lasting impression on Hartford about Perez's friendship and loyalty.
"That's the kind of guy Pat is," Hartford said. "I don't know another player on tour who would caddie for his caddie like Pat did for me."
Perez was also there for Hartford when he suffered the crushing loss of his father, who died, at 59, of cancer in 2002. So closely did Hartford associate Torrey Pines and his dad that he couldn't bear to be there other than on Buick Invitational weeks with Perez.
He has since given up all but the occasional golf round for surfing and running near his Del Mar home.
"I lost my passion for it," Hartford said.
But his love for Torrey Pines lives on. His grieving time over, Hartford walked the South Course in solitude on a gorgeous sunny day last week, preparing for a U.S. Open like no other. Torrey Pines has never looked more beautiful, and Hartford said he truly loved what he saw in this place. His home.
"I could remember," he said, "the times I spent with my dad out there."
PP checking in from home. Haven't had time to write lately, but finally have some down time and wanted to talk about the US Open week.
