A 50-year fixture at Gardiner's Bay

Having advanced in a morning match at the 1991 U.S. Amateur, Rick Southwick called home to Shelter Island and told his pro at Gardiner's Bay Country Club. Southwick joked that in the afternoon, he would be playing "some guy named Phil Mickelson."

Of course it was well known that Mickelson was the defending champion and had won a PGA Tour event as an amateur. So at first the pro, Bob DeStefano, said, "Oh boy." Then he thought for a second and told Southwick, "Look, you know how to play as well as anybody else. There's absolutely no reason you can't beat him."

When Southwick called later that afternoon, having made national news by defeating Mickelson, he didn't reach DeStefano, who was playing with some members. Someone went out to tell them about Southwick's win, and their round morphed into a long, heartfelt celebration.

It wasn't altogether different from any other day in DeStefano's 50-year career as head pro at Gardiner's Bay. It was all a celebration, an occasion for DeStefano to impart just the right words and present just the right attitude.

"The interesting thing was that I never saw myself as an employee. It was like throwing a party for a bunch of friends," DeStefano, 72, said a few days after his official July 1 retirement and more than a week after a ceremony at the club attended by 300.

"It was wonderful," he said. "They weren't bored."

That was because DeStefano never lost his enthusiasm, especially in teaching his junior program. Thirty-four of the past 41 Gardiner's Bay club championships have been won by that program's alumni.

John Feinstein, the best-selling author, columnist and Golf Channel commentator, was in those classes as a kid. He still spends summers on Shelter Island and has lunch with DeStefano just about every day. He said the greatest lesson DeStefano ever taught him was how to love golf.

"He never put emphasis on anyone having to be a great player. It was never his goal to produce champions," Feinstein said. "He wanted to produce players who could go anywhere in the world and enjoy playing the best golf courses."

Former students and employees returned from all parts of the country to toast the pro June 25. Feinstein was the emcee. Southwick, now membership director at Hidden Creek Country Club in Reston, Va., came home to speak about having worked in the golf shop and bag room and ultimately as assistant pro.

For DeStefano, it was like a scene from "It's a Wonderful Life," only a tad more whimsical. In his remarks, the pro told the crowd, "I want to go back a little bit," and somebody yelled, "Not to the Pyramids!"

No, he hasn't been around that long. But it did say in his high school yearbook that he wanted to be a golf pro. The 300 attendees knew his story: caddied in New Jersey, served in the Coast Guard, applied all over the country for golf jobs, worked two years as assistant pro at Southampton Golf Club, applied for the head job at Shinnecock Hills but lost out to Don McDougall, took the head job at Gardiner's Bay and stayed.

He was a school board member for 15 years and president for six, when his two children were in school. He still lives in a house near the third hole and will continue to give golf lessons -- he had five lined up Tuesday. Asserting that he is "too young to sit around," he is running for Shelter Island Town Supervisor.

So he is a fixture on Shelter Island, and golf is a fixture in the lives of many Shelter Islanders, thanks to him.