Kent Myers stepped up to his ball on No. 9 at Royal Oaks Country Club on Friday — his 18th hole of the day — took a look at his target, found his line, then prepared to putt.
With his hands behind his back, of course.
Yes, his hands behind his back, maneuvering the putter between his legs to the ball just in front of him.
It might look like a gag, but Myers really does putt like this. Not all the time, but enough that he prefers his behind-the-back style on 20-footers.
It has worked for decades, too.
Now 81, Myers is in Vancouver this weekend for the Royal Oaks Invitational Tournament. Myers won this event in 1977 and has been back almost every year.
“I don’t remember a lot about it,” he said of the ’77 title. “I just remember winning here was very important. I had lost in a three-man playoff a couple years before that.”
It must be difficult for Myers to remember details from all of his titles. A four-time winner of the Oregon Amateur, Myers is one of the greatest amateur golfers in Northwest history. Inducted into the Pacific Northwest Golf Hall of Fame, he has been credited with 150 championships.
He has played in a U.S. Open. He made a behind-the-back 25-foot putt on the 18th green of the U.S. Senior Open. And his putting technique was featured in Golf Digest.
More than 60 years in the game, Myers is proud of the fact that he had to work for all he has achieved. He began playing as a junior at North Salem High School with “four wooden-shaft clubs and a 3-wood.” He wore two different golf shoes, finding each in a garbage can.
“I wasn’t a spoiled junior golfer,” he said. “I came up the tough way. I just loved the game.”
He started taking it seriously in the 1950s when he received a special set of clubs. A North Salem teacher’s son was killed in action in Korea, and the teacher wanted someone to use the son’s clubs.
“I felt a huge obligation, that someone would give me something like that,” Myers said.
Later, in the Army, Myers found himself in putting contests in the Dallas, Texas, area. But he got kicked out of the games because he kept winning. That’s when he developed his behind-the-back putting style. Promising he would only putt with his behind-the-back style, he was then allowed back in the contests.
“I got really good at that,” Myers said.
“I’m not a showoff. It just worked so well. Still, it took me a long time to try it at a tournament. It looks so dumb. Ben Hogan would have disowned me.”
But he did use it to perfection at the 1965 Oregon Amateur. After winning four close matches, he found himself down by three with nine holes to play in the semifinals. He broke out his behind-the-back putt for a birdie to win one hole, and his opponent must have been rattled.
“The next hole, he hit two balls so far away we never found either one,” Myers said.
Myers rallied for the win.
Not all of his stories are about his great shots. One of his favorite tales comes from his opening round at the 1956 U.S. Open at Oak Hill in Rochester, N.Y.
“I topped it off the first tee,” Myers said. “People talk about being embarrassed. I couldn’t possibly be embarrassed. I lived through topping the first tee at the U.S. Open.”
While he played with some of the biggest names in golf, he never really considered trying to become a professional.
“I am a better educator than I am a golfer,” said the retired teacher and school administrator, who now lives in Lake Oswego. “My heart was really into that.”
Instead, he just became one of the best amateurs in the game.
His talent stuck around a long time, too.
Myers actually led the Royal Oaks Invitational after the first round in 2006, when the then 73-year-old fired a first-round 70.
“Golf is fading now, but I still beat all the guys my age,” he said.
Still having fun, too.
And making others smile with that bizarre putting stroke.
