Text size:

Garden City's Tubbs a star in golf and hockey

Mark Herrmann

May 25, 2008

It must be more than just coincidence that hockey players are such good golfers. Note, for instance, which celebrity won the Nationwide Tour's BMW Charity Pro-Am last week: Wayne Gretzky.

Ed Westfall once told this reporter that it's mostly a combination of hockey players being coordinated and having much of the summer off. But it might be even more than that.

"The slap shot has the same mechanics as the golf swing," said Doug Mauch, head pro at Wheatley Hills Golf Club in East Williston, who has seen the comparison firsthand. One of his star pupils, Kristen Tubbs of Garden City High School, is one of the top amateur hockey players on Long Island and this week won her third consecutive Nassau girls golf title.

Tubbs, who shot 80 at Bethpage Yellow and won by 10 shots, will play both sports at Williams College and is certain that playing both helped her get into one of the most competitive schools in the country.

Mark Herrmann Bio | E-mail | Recent columns

"Hockey is my passion," she said. "And I would say that with golf, I have come to develop a real appreciation for the difficulty of the game."

A high-scoring left winger for the Suffolk PAL Silver Shields, an elite travel team, she is certain that her hockey helps her golf. "The swings are different," she said, but added that the training she does on and off the ice have given her leg strength that help her on the course. "I might not always be the best golfer when I play," she said, "but I usually hit it farther."

Tubbs plays from the white (men's) tees at Hempstead Country Club and shoots in the 70s. That is after having taken up golf at 12 and not having played competitively until she was a sophomore at Garden City. By the end of that first season, she was a county champion.

"Anything she picks up, she does well. She is just a natural athlete," said Mauch, a friend of the Tubbs family. "Anything I tell her for the first time, she does it on her next swing. Selfishly, I'd say the only bad thing is that hockey is her passion. If she loved golf the way she loves hockey, she could be a pro player."

Tubbs reminds Mauch of former Garden City star Jean Bartholomew, who went on to a career on the LPGA Tour.

Who knows where her dual college careers will lead? She knows the two sports mesh well, having played golf with several current and former Islanders. Robert Nilsson is an excellent golfer, she said, and Mike Sillinger has a solid game. "Miro Satan has great hands on the ice and you can see that in his short game," she said.

She signed up for a rigorous hockey training program at the Islanders facility in Syosset this summer. But that's not half of her plan. "I really want to devote myself to golf," the 3-handicapper said. "I think if I do that, I can become a scratch golfer."

What she also might find out is that when people really devote themselves to golf, golf becomes their passion.

An ace? No fooling

Lee Behrens of Southampton reports that she was on a Florida golf trip with current and retired members of the Nassau County Police Fifth Precinct last month when she called her husband, Bob Edwards, to say she had made a hole-in-one. After numerous congratulations, the former patrol sergeant just had to say, "April Fool." It was April 1.

Then on April 2, she called again with the same news. She insists this time it was true: an ace on the 107-yard 15th hole at Walden Lakes in Plant City, with a 5-hybrid.

Gerry Parker, a senior systems analyst for Nycomed US in Melville, reports that he hit a 260-yard drive, then a 225-yard 3-wood on the par-5 17th hole at Bethpage Yellow on May 7. The 3-wood shot went in the hole for a double eagle.

"I guess I hit the peak of my career," he said. "It's all downhill from here."