Hansen: Tucson golfers came up aces on same day

Don Pooley and Cindy Rarick have almost nothing in common except golf.

Pooley grew up in Riverside, California, and rarely attracted attention for his golfing skill.

“I was never a prospect to anybody,” he told me. “I never won a junior championship.”

He was one of 108 players in a mass tryout at Arizona in 1969. He shot 77 and was added to the club as a walk-on. He got a scholarship two years later, but never won a tournament in his UA days.

Rarick (then Cindy Flom), was so good as a junior at Sahuaro High School that she was added to the Cougars’ boys team and became a standout. Everybody in the Tucson golf community knew about her, especially her mentor, Tucson golf icon Dell Urich.

She went to Hawaii on a golf scholarship, quickly won the Hawaii women’s match play title and was on the LPGA Tour at 25. She won he LPGA Hawaiian Ladies Open at 27, the first of five championships.

Pooley lost his PGA Tour card in 1977, went back to Qualifying School and got the last spot in a field of 156 golfers. He broke through in 1980, winning the B.C. Open.

Although they were 421 miles apart, their destinies crossed on Memorial Day weekend, 1987. Pooley staged a terrific rally to win the Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial championship in Dublin, Ohio, while Rarick birdied the last four holes, similarly roaring from behind to win the LPGA Corning Classic in Corning, New York.

What are the odds of two pro golfers from Tucson winning on the same day?

“The win was so thrilling because of the way I came back,” Rarick told me. “It was so unexpected. Everybody thought ‘where did she come from?’ because I birdied the last four holes.”

Rarick beat LPGA stars Betsy King and Patty Sheehan by one stroke that day. It was the prime of her golf career; Rarick would soon win the 1989 Chrysler Plymouth Classic, the 1990 Pat Bradley International and the 1991 Northgate Computer Classic.

She was on leaderboards everywhere, earning $2.1 million (which included the $41,250 she won at the Corning Classic).

Pooley’s prime years were delayed by two back surgeries and one neck surgery, keeping him out of about half of the PGA Tour events from 1991-94, but his final round at the ’87 Memorial wasn’t soon forgotten.

He began the round four strokes off the lead, but made an epic, 20-foot, downhill putt on the 17th green for a birdie and won by three strokes. He was paid $140,000.

“Starting the final round, I had no expectations,” Pooley said. “It definitely depended upon Scott Hoch. If he shot a good round there was nothing I could do. It surprised me.”

Where are they now: Pooley, 64, a prostate cancer survivor, is retired from the Champions Tour and lives in Tucson. He is a volunteer coach for the UA men’s golf team and a regular attendee, sitting behind the UA bench at McKale Center basketball games.

Rarick, 56, has been the winery director of Silvara Vineyards in Leavenworth, Washington, near Seattle, for eight years. Her top Tucson golf moment was a second-place finish at the 1995 LPGA Ping/Welch’s Tucson Classic. Her last event on the LPGA Tour was 2009.

How they did it: Pooley’s greatest moment in golf was when he beat Tom Watson in a classic sudden-death finish at the 2002 U.S. Senior Open. Pooley shot a 63 in the third round to get in contention.

A few months later, he reflected on his career, which included four victories and the 1985 Vardon Trophy, awarded to the golfer with the lowest average score (70.43) on the PGA Tour. He was regarded for years as one of the best putters in the world.

“Today nobody’s more surprised than me,” he said. “I was never a great junior player, I was never a great college player, and I never had a lot of success growing up, but I’ve had a lot of success on the Tour. ‘’

Rarick, who helped to organize the LPGA Legends Tour, including two events at the Omni Tucson National, said in 2008 that she was at peace with her career.

“I was home in January this year for the first time in 25 years, but that’s fine,” she said. “It seems like those years went by in a blink, but my life is good; I couldn’t have scripted it any better.”