Happy Trails - Johnny Hoetmer

By: Jeff Shelley


In trying to come up with some thoughts about my imminent departure from Cybergolf, I'll be throwing out a recollection or two from nearly three decades as a golf writer before I leave for good July 31. Here's one of them:

Johnny Hoetmer, the late long-time pro at my home club of Sand Point in Seattle, was one of our sponsors when we joined in 1993. I had gotten to know him through my work.

Johnny was there when Sand Point opened in 1927 - with mayor Bertha K. Landes (yes, we had a woman mayor then; she's still Seattle's first and only) - cutting the ribbon at the new golf course overlooking Lake Washington and the Cascades.

Then a 13-year-old, Johnny was there when Sand Point debuted, waiting in the gully off the par-3 seventh tee, retrieving balls miss-hit by the dignitaries, and pocketing them.

From that modest start and subsequent caddie, jack-of-all-golf-trade gigs that aspiring club pros did in those days, Johnny went on to become a head pro, played in the U.S. Open, hosted a youthful Jack Nicklaus at Sand Point, won tournaments despite his diminutive size thanks to a stellar short game, and became the swing guru of - besides his NCAA champion daughter Judy - U.S. Women's Amateur champions Pat Lesser (Harbottle) and JoAnne Gunderson (Carner) and future LPGA Tour winner Ruth Jessen.

After a 30-year career at Sand Point, he's forever memorialized by the club's entry road, "Johnny Hoetmer Drive."

Johnny was instrumental in sustaining a culture at a club that's never had tee times. Well over a half-century ago, and in a custom that continues today, Johnny would pair single walk-ons on the first tee with other two- and threesomes, ensuring that everyone got to know everybody else.

He had just one piece of advice for new members: "Aim left on the first tee." Our opening par-4 is short, but it's uphill, the fairway slopes hard to the right toward trees, and there's another gully in front of a small green that if you don't hit in two will be facing one of the toughest shots of your day.

In 2002, I wrote a special 75th anniversary newsletter and helped produce a video for the club, interviewing members in their late-80s and 90s, two of which were related to Sand Point's founder and neighborhood developer, Sam Hayes.

Sam was an odious, racist sort who put in the private community's original covenants - blaring it in advertisements in local papers and golf magazines at the time - that no people of color could live there. (This wasn't changed until many decades later. Hayes stipulated that removing the covenant required a 100% vote held once a year by residents in the 225-home development - some of whom go to Palm Springs and Arizona in the winter and weren't in town to cast their "get this the hell off the books" vote.)

Anyway, Johnny was a character. As he got into his 80s Johnny kind of listed to the right, probably because he hit so many golf shots right-handed, and his Coke-bottle glasses and diminutive size made him look like a cheery Truman Capote.

Yet shaking his big, strong hands was true and he always wore his welcome smile and old-style golf cap.

In the mid-1990s I created an event called The Big Hair Funny Pants Tournament. I got the idea from somewhere. My wife and I hosted it for three years at historic Chevy Chase Golf Club (now called Discovery Bay) across Puget Sound in Port Townsend, a quaint Victorian-era town on the Olympic Peninsula.

I had a hunch that Johnny might have some funny pants from the Mod 1960s (yes, the Beatles' Zeitgeist even pervaded golf), so after I interviewed him for the special 75th anniversary "Sand Pit" I explained the tournament and asked if he had any "funny pants."

Without hesitation he answered, "Yes, as a matter of fact I do," pointing to a nearby, open closet in his small apartment off Northeast 75th.

I went over and picked up the neatly stacked trousers off the floor. The first Polyester pair I unveiled was a garish green with dinosaurs all over them.

The second set of flannel pants - which I still wear on occasion despite their being more suitable for cold winters - were tan and with no belt loops, just the old-fashioned clip-on system of securing them. (I must wear them with suspenders).

But they're filled with hundreds of colorful golf tees floating in space, making me the envy of every Big Hair Funny Pants and the ideal host. They will be bequeathed to my first grandson who gets into golf.

Before leaving his place I double-checked with Johnny, making sure I could go home with these treasures.

He responded, quite seriously, "Sure, go ahead and take 'em. I was going to give them to the school for the blind anyway."