'Everybody knew we were going to win': Rick Karbowski treasures memories of Auburn's state golf title of 50 years ago

Sunday is Easter, the final round of the Masters and Rick Karbowski’s 68th birthday.

“I can’t believe I’m 68,” said the Auburn Driving Range instructor. “I’m on the 15th or 16th tee of life. But I feel good.”

Karbowski also has trouble believing 50 years have passed since he and his Auburn High School teammates won the 1973 high school golf state championship.

“We had one hell of a team,” he said. “Everybody knew we were going to win, it was just a matter of by how many shots.”

The state championship tournament was held in June of 1973 at the United Shoe Golf Club, now called Beverly Golf & Tennis Club, in Beverly. The championship was not separated into divisions back then, so all of the top high school golf teams competed against each other. Auburn won easily, Karbowski believes by 17 shots.

Karbowski was the No. 1 golfer for Auburn, and his teammates were Randy Stevenson, brothers Joe and Michael Harney, Glenn Graves, Doug Staruk, Dave Rogan, Mike Leal and Rick Hagberg. Ray Beaudoin was the coach. Rogan and Joe Harney are deceased.

“Everybody on our team could shoot par or better at Pakachoag,” Karbowski said.

The state title was the second in a few months for Graves, who scored the winning goal with 38 seconds left to give Auburn a 5-4 win over Arlington in the state hockey final at Boston Garden.

Karbowski is organizing a 50th reunion of the golf team’s state championship at 1 p.m. Sunday, June 25, at Pakachoag Golf Course, the school’s home course. There will be hamburgers, hot dogs, lots of laughs and pictures taken, and just a bit of golf. Karbowski hopes to have the members of the 1973 golf team hit commemorative tee shots off the first tee.

“It will probably be the last time we get together as a team,” Karbowski said.

After Karbowski’s mother died in 2020, he found her scrapbooks, and one included a photo of the 1973 state championship golf team. They brought back memories.

Karbowski credited Dick Cote, Pakachoag’s general manager at the time, for much of Auburn’s success. He invited Cote, who lives near the ninth green, to the reunion.

“Everybody in that neighborhood played golf because of Dick,” Karbowski said. “He used to let them play for free.”

Karbowski remembers that in return for free golf, each young golfer had a small job. Each night, those who lived nearby took home the four pins that were close to Upland Street so they wouldn’t get stolen, and they’d return them the next morning. Karbowski’s responsibility was to make sure the trash barrel on the second tee didn’t overflow.

“When I was learning to play, we used to play 36 to 45 holes a day in the summertime,” he said. “Everybody got good. If it wasn’t for that, we probably wouldn’t have won the state championship.”

The high school state individual golf tournament was a separate 36-hole tournament back then, and Karbowski won as a junior in 1972 and as a senior in '73. He was also medalist at the Massachusetts Junior Amateur and the New England Junior Amateur to complete the triple crown of junior golf in both years.

The 1972 and 1973 state individual tournaments were held at Saddle Hill CC, since renamed Hopkinton CC, and Karbowski shot the same two scores both years, 75 and 68. He won by 10 shots in 1972 and by five in '73.

In the 36-hole state tourney in 1972, he reached all eight par 5s in two shots and two-putted for birdie each time. He hit it long even though the equipment back then wasn’t anywhere near as high-tech as it is now.

“With the new equipment now, it’s so much easier,” he said. “Back then, we were playing with golf balls that weren’t that great. Some of them weren’t even round, and we were playing with persimmon clubs. Golf was tougher back then. You had to be pretty good to score because the clubs weren’t forgiving like they are now.”

Karbowski learned something in high school that stuck with him for the rest of his golf career.

“Confidence,” he said. “When I was a junior golfer, this might sound cocky and arrogant, but I knew when I was going head to head with anybody that I was going to win that match. I knew before we teed off. There was no question in my mind. My eyes got opened a little bit when I went to college.”

One of Karbowski’s teammates at the University of Alabama was Jerry Pate, who was a junior when Karbowski was a freshman. The summer after Pate’s junior year, he won the U.S. Amateur, and two years later, he won the 1976 U.S. Open as a PGA Tour rookie.

Nevertheless, as a freshman Karbowski outplayed Pate to win a tournament, the Alabama Intercollegiate. In the SEC, Karbowski played against such eventual PGA Tour winners as Gary Koch and Andy Bean, who went to Florida, and Bill Kratzert and Chip Beck, who played for Georgia.

Karbowski worked as an assistant pro at Pleasant Valley CC, as a teaching pro at Auburn Driving Range and as head pro at Oxford Golf and Racquet Club before becoming a sales rep. He went on to win more than 30 professional tournaments, including the New England Open in 2003 at Pleasant Valley CC and 2004 at the International and he outbattled future PGA Tour winner Sean O’Hara in both.

When he turned 50, he played well enough in Q-school to become exempt on the Champions Tour, and he tied for sixth in one event as a rookie in 2006. Unfortunately, a disc in his neck pinching a nerve caused pain down his left arm into his hand and cost him any chance of keeping his tour card.

The following year, he moved to Texas to play year round, and he won the 2007 Texas Senior Open. Karbowski played his way into a handful of Champions Tour events as a Monday qualifier before he moved back to Massachusetts in 2010 and began teaching at Auburn Driving Range again. The following year, he won the NEPGA Senior PGA championship.

He had hoped to go to the Masters on his birthday, but he’ll settle for attending the final round of Ryder Cup in Italy on Oct. 1. Karbowski and his wife, Alba Ehrlich, who live in Shrewsbury, have tickets to attend the final round in Guidonia Montecelio, Italy, near Rome. They’ll be in Italy for 16 days on an Alabama Alumni Association trip.

Karbowski underwent right hip replacement surgery in 2015 and doesn’t play competitively as much as he once did, but he still plays at Wachusett CC and carries a plus 2.5 handicap.

Karbowski can be reached at karbo4955@gmail.com.

HC alum honored at Ouimet Fund banquet

Susan J. Curtin received the Richard F. Connolly Jr. Award for Distinguished Service at the annual Francis Ouimet Fund banquet Monday night at Encore Boston Harbor in Everett.

She is a proud alum of Holy Cross and has served as a trustee at her alma mater. During her acceptance speech Monday night, Curtin enthused, “Go Cross.”

Her father, the late J.D. Power, was born in Worcester and also graduated from Holy Cross before he founded the marketing research firm, J.D. Power and Associates. The J.D. Power Center for Liberal Arts with the World at Holy Cross is named after him.

A founding member of Boston Golf Club in Hingham, Curtin helped launch the John D. Mineck Memorial Foundation and the Mineck Endowed Scholarship at Ouimet.

She also has an impressive golf résumé. She played golf at Holy Cross, competed in more than 10 USGA national events and won seven championships in New England and Mass Golf events. In addition, she and her son, James, set a record by winning the last 10 Mass Golf Mother-Son Tournament titles.

Ernie Els, who has won 75 professional tournaments including four majors, received the Francis Ouimet Award for Lifetime Contributions with nearly 1,500 people in attendance.

The Ouimet hosts the largest golf banquet in the world and raises funds for need-based college scholarships for men and women who work at golf clubs in Massachusetts. Ouimet is credited with popularizing golf in the U.S. by defeating heavily favored British golfers Harry Vardon and Ted Ray in a playoff to win the 1913 U.S. Open as an amateur at The Country Club in Brookline where he used to caddie.

Several young men and women who caddied or worked other jobs at Worcester CC, Tatnuck CC and Oak Hill CC are Ouimet scholars. Former Green Hill Municipal Golf Course caddie Maiah Lester, a senior at Loyola University Maryland, is the first recipient of the Tee Up Diversity Scholarship.

Welcoming suggestions

You can suggest story ideas for this golf column by reaching me at the email listed below. Comments are also welcome.

—Contact Bill Doyle at bcdoyle15@charter.net. Follow him on Twitter@BillDoyle15

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Rick Karbowski treasures memories of Auburn's 1973 state golf title