D'Amato: State's greatest amateur walks final fairway
MUKWONAGO – If it was Mark Bemowski’s last hurrah, if it was the last tournament he’d ever enter – the last time he’d ever play a meaningful round of golf – it couldn’t have ended any better.
Last August, weeks past his 70th birthday and with his strength waning by the day, Bemowski somehow conjured up a vintage performance, firing rounds of 66 and 69 to win the State Senior Amateur for the fifth time.
He’d dusted a strong field at Sheboygan Pine Hills, one of his favorite courses in Wisconsin. The runner-up finished five shots back.
“After I won, I was thinking, ‘Is the good Lord giving me one last hurrah?’ ” Bemowski says. “ ‘Maybe He’s giving me one last hurrah before it’s all over.’ ”
He knew something was off with his health. He hadn’t felt right for several years and had lost 30 pounds over the summer. Golfers he once out-drove by 30 yards were hitting it 10 yards past him. Why didn’t he get checked earlier?
“I’ve never been one to run to the doctor,” he says. “There wouldn’t have been anything anyone could have done, anyway. I’d had it for years.”
Pancreatic cancer. The worst kind of awful. Life had dealt him a triple-bogey in 2014, when his wife, Sandy, suffered a massive stroke. Now it was handing him an unplayable lie.
“I often wondered what I’d do if I couldn’t play golf anymore,” Bemowski says. “Now I know. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
If he never plays again, his legacy is secure. Quite simply, he’s the greatest amateur golfer Wisconsin has ever produced. With talented young players turning pro at an early age these days, it’s unlikely anyone will surpass his record of sustained excellence over a 50-year career.
He won a total of six State Amateur titles in four different decades. He won the State Amateur and the State Senior Amateur in the same year (2005) – the first and probably last time that will be done. He won the State Open in 1974 and nearly won it 30 years later. He made the 36-hole cut at the State Amateur for 40 consecutive years. Who’s going to come along and do that?
Bemowski went head-to-head with the likes of Archie Dadian and Dick Sucher in the 1970s, Steve Stricker and J.P. Hayes in the '80s, Mark Wilson and David Roesch in the '90s and Dan Woltman and Charlie Delsman in the 2000s.
He seemingly got better with age, too, winning the State Senior Open four times, the Senior Amateur five times, the Senior Match Play four times and the Senior Best-ball five times with two different partners.
His crowning achievement was winning the 2004 U.S. Senior Amateur Championship (and twice finishing runner-up).
Bemowski worked hard at his game. So hard that some of his peers, perhaps envious of his success, referred to him as a “professional amateur.” His greatest joy was practicing, beating balls, testing new equipment.
“Other than my family, the thing that means the most to me is getting new golf clubs, trying this, trying that,” he says. “The eternal quest. That’s what golf is.”
Bemowski was long and straight off the tee and was superb within 100 yards of the green. He was an excellent putter and rarely beat himself.
“I often had the ability to sort of be a gamer,” he says, the closest he will ever come to giving himself a pat on the back.
Gamer? That’s putting it mildly. Ask the talented group of golfers who competed in weekly money games at Johnson Park in Racine what it was like to play with Bemowski. He was a cutthroat competitor who occasionally rubbed playing partners the wrong way.
RELATED: $6,999 Marcus hotel package includes helicopter rides to U.S. Open at Erin Hills
And yet, they were all there a couple weeks ago to reminisce and offer support and encouragement in a gathering organized by the Wisconsin State Golf Association. Bemowski, never one to show much emotion, was moved to tears.
The prognosis is grim. Chemo, he says, will prolong his life but doctors can’t tell him how much longer he’s got. As much as he’d like to play golf this year, he wouldn’t be happy hitting his driver 210 yards and struggling to break 85.
“What’s life,” he says, “if you have nothing to look forward to?”
I’ve known Mark for 30 years, covered many of his victories and had the honor of caddying for him during a practice round for the 2007 U.S. Senior Open at Whistling Straits. We still laugh about me tumbling into a bunker on the 15th hole and breaking the stand on his carry bag.
When we parted in the parking lot after lunch at the Blue Bay Restaurant last week, he gave me a hug. I couldn’t think of anything to say then, so I’ll say it now: Thanks, Mark, for everything you’ve meant to Wisconsin golf.
