GolfMagazine

PHOTO: Spenser Hasak
‘The Local Guy’
IN 2001, EVERYONE WAS ROOTING FOR DANVERS’ STEVE SWEDBERG
By BOB ALBRIGHT
F
or one momentous week 16 years
ago, Steve Swedberg was the story
at the 2001 U.S. Senior Open at
Salem Country Club. Sure, Nicklaus,
Palmer, Player and Trevino were all there
too, but everyone on the North Shore was
talking about the affable physical therapist
from Danvers who improbably went from
playing for skins over at Beverly Golf &
Tennis Club, to teeing it up with golf
royalty just a few miles up the road in the
pre-eminent major on the Senior Tour.
“For me, it was way beyond my
expectations to be where I was,”
Swedberg recalled fondly.
Swedberg had qualified at Plymouth
Country Club that May, where he rode a
very hot putter to 67 and a three-way tie
for medalist honors. The congratulatory
banner went up for the popular perennial
club champion on the porch at Beverly
G&T shortly thereafter. The enormity of
the situation quickly began to sink in.
“I can remember thinking, ‘What have I
gotten myself into?’” Swedberg recalled,
with a chuckle.
After a pair of solid practice rounds,
Swedberg found himself in a nondescript
threesome when play teed off on Thursday.
But he was sandwiched between two very
notable groups: Jack Nicklaus, Raymond
Floyd and eventual champion Bruce
Fleisher on one side and Dana Quigley,
Hale Irwin and Doug Tewell on the other.
“I remember the guys from Beverly
saying that they had seen me play more
than enough and that they were going to
watch Nicklaus and Irwin,” said Swedberg,
who brought his friend and fellow Beverly
G&T member Billy Elwell along for the
wild ride as his caddie. “I just happened to
be in the middle of it.”
Pick out any five synonyms for the word
“surreal” and Swedberg will tell you that
they all applied to that eventful week in
Peabody. After firing an opening round 86
on a day where the temperatures were at
least 10 degrees higher, Swedberg vividly
remembers making his way to the locker
room where he found the most unlikely of
souls to commiserate with.
“I was straddling my bench with my
hat in my hand and my head between
my knees.
I picked my head up and six feet away
from me was Arnold Palmer doing the
same thing,” Swedberg reminisced of “The
King,” who had stumbled to an 81 himself
in the heat. “He put out his hand and said,
‘Arnold Palmer’ and I just said, ‘Mr.
Palmer you don’t have to introduce
yourself to me.’”
A 20-minute conversation ensued with
the late legend offering plenty words of
encouragement.
“I told him that I was the local guy and
that I had not played very well and he told
me that was a lot of pressure. He said I had
nothing to be ashamed of and that I had
made it here and that I belonged here.”
Nicklaus also made a point of
introducing himself to the “Local Guy”
who was getting his fair share of headlines
in all the local papers. Then there was his
final hole of the first day where Swedberg’s
approach shot just rolled into the front of
the trap below Salem’s elevated 18th
green, which served as the tournament’s
ninth hole.
“I’m standing outside the trap and I’m
looking at all the television cameras and I
guess Nicklaus had just sunk a long putt
before me,” Swedberg noted. “I’m thinking
that I could blade this thing into the crowd,
or I could whiff and fall into the trap
head-first!”
Summoning the form that has led him
to six club titles at Beverly G&T, the crowd
favorite did neither as he pitched out onto
the ultra slick green and then sank a
winding 30-footer to save par.
“I even doffed my hat to the crowd,”
Swedberg, who shot an 81 the following
day and missed the cut, recalled with a
grin. “They said it was even a louder
applause than what Nicklaus got.”
Now 67, the last few years have not
quite been the idyllic retirement that
Swedberg had hoped for. In the winter of
2013 he lost his beloved wife of 33 years,
Joyce, to lung cancer. He still plays golf
throughout the winter at his home in
Boynton Beach, Fla., and several times a
week with his regular group at Beverly
Golf & Tennis Club throughout the spring
and summer, but has had to battle
through a series of setbacks on the course
as well. He has had both hips replaced in
recent years and lost sight in his left eye
two years ago after a bizarre reaction from
an encounter with fire ants on the golf
course. Still, the resilient Swedberg has
worked his way back to a single-digit
handicap.
“I try to focus on the positives rather
than the negatives,” he said. “I had a very
good run and I’m lucky to have the
memories that I have.” l
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