Keith Decker shot 14-under 58 on Saturday at The Homestead's Old Course in Hot Springs. Decker now owns the course record at four Virginia courses. (Bulletin file photo)

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

By PAUL MONTANA - Martinsville Bulletin Sports Writer

After shooting a 58, most golfers would probably call everyone in their address book to gloat about it. Not Keith Decker. “I didn’t call anybody,” Decker said Tuesday, three days after shooting a course record 14-under par 58 at The Homestead’s Old Course in Hot Springs. “Well,” he added, “I did make my usual phone call to my wife, but that’s all.” Decker’s course record was quite a shock. His 58 from the white tees (par 72, 5,816 yards) shattered the old record of 62 by course pro Mike Fry. “I’d be jumping up and down, holding the card in the air — look at me, look at me!” said Mike Haley of Martinsville, one of Decker’s playing partners that day. “But again, he’s very modest. He’s never gonna self-promote. He’s from the school that, the scores speak for him. And if you look at his scores, they speak volumes.” Decker chuckled at the notion of bragging about his record. “That’s not my nature there,” he said. “I appreciate all the attention and everything, but that’s just not my nature.” And plus, course records are old hat for the state’s top amateur player, who could certainly play on the Senior PGA Tour if he so desired. He owns the course record at two local courses — his home course, Chatmoss Country Club (59) and Forest Park Country Club (62) — and another at the Royal Virginian in Gordonsville (64). On the other hand, legendary golfer Sam Snead didn’t frequent those courses like he did The Homestead. Snead played there “hundreds of times,” Decker said, but never reached that mark as far as anybody knows. “That means more to me than just about anything,” Decker said. So how does one shoot a 58? First, you don’t realize that you’re close to a mark like that. Decker said the other golfers in his foursome — Haley, Hunter Morin of Fredericksburg and Gregg Smart of New Jersey — didn’t change the way they treated Decker throughout the round, even though they had a handle on what he was shooting. “The guys I was playing with, they didn’t change,” Decker said. “They were reacting as always from the start of the round. That really helped, and it didn’t put the focus on it.” That’s in contrast to a round Decker played earlier this year at Chatmoss, when he had a shot to beat his old record of 59 but came up short. “We quit talking to each other, everyone was real quiet,” Decker recalled. “It was sort of like a no-hitter in baseball, they were leaving me alone and all that stuff. “It sort of put the focus on it, and made me start thinking a little bit more, and made me start pressing to get it done. And when you’re pressing, it usually isn’t gonna happen.” Brian McArthur, the golf pro at Lynwood Country Club in Martinsville, agreed. “If you realize you’re shooting that low, your head starts getting involved, and usually that’s gonna cause trouble,” he said. He also said it takes a certain confidence to be able to shoot a 58. Decker certainly has that. “The type of player he is, he probably feels like he could shoot that every day,” McArthur said. “It’s just a matter of the putts going in the hole.” “I’ve seen rounds like that,” said Jerry Wood, who played professionally overseas and on the Nationwide Tour for 10 years. “Sometimes a guy gets on a roll, and sometimes it doesn’t stop.” It certainly never stopped for Decker. He had 10 birdies and eight eagle putts — and that’s not counting his 35-foot chip-in for eagle on No. 17, which Decker called his shot of the day. “As soon as I hit it, I felt like I hit the exact right distance,” Decker said. “It started rolling like a putt, and it just went right in.” He also had a 10-foot birdie putt on 18 that could have given him a 57, but it only grazed the edge. And only then did Haley, who was keeping track of Decker’s score in his head, say to Decker, “Nice 58.” Decker’s reply: “Basically, he just said thank you,” Haley said with a laugh. “That wasn’t his first 50s score.” Decker might not have been eager to let people know about his record scorecard, but they found out soon enough. “I’ve had a lot of phone calls. People that I haven’t talked to in a long time have called,” Decker said. “It feels nice to get that recognition and to do that. “The biggest thing for me is, it’s really nice having the course record up there, because that’s one of my favorite places to go.”