Three-generation golfing family

Published 10:22 pm Wednesday, July 8, 2009

MUKILTEO — Golf is a great game for a lot of reasons, and one big reason is that golf is also a great family game.

Just ask the Stricklands, one of Snohomish County’s first families of golf.

Stan Strickland of Snohomish, the 66-year-old patriarch, still competes in various state and local events. Son Jeff Strickland of Snohomish is 41, and a former state junior champion and a past Snohomish County Amateur champ who remains a perennial contender in the latter event. And Jeff’s 17-year-old son Mark Strickland is a senior-to-be at Mukilteo’s Kamiak High School and should be one of the state’s top high school players next spring.

The three generations of Stricklands golf together often and compete always.

“I think we’re all competitive as hell,” Jeff Strickland said. “Nobody here likes to lose.”

Mark is a scratch golfer, giving him the lowest handicap of the three. Jeff has a 1.4 handicap, while Stan is still competitive with a 5.0 handicap.

But handicaps go out the window when these three get together for a game.

“We don’t give very many shots, and that’s probably why I lose a lot,” Stan said with a smile. “But it’s cool for me that I can still compete with them to some degree.”

Yet the important thing, the Stricklands agree, is really not winning and losing. It’s being together and playing the game they love.

“You rarely see fathers and sons playing golf,” Mark said. “But I play with my dad about three times a week and Grandpa joins us once or twice. So that’s really cool.”

Stan Strickland started golfing in the early 1970s and immediately got hooked on the game. “I practiced every single day,” he said. “I was rabid. I hit balls into a net in my garage until my hands bled. Once I got the disease, it got bad.”

Soon his four kids were also playing. In particular, Jeff and his older brother Jim, who might be the best player in the family. Jim Strickland played golf at Arizona State University, won the Washington Open in 1990 and 1991, and today is the membership director at the exclusive Whisper Rock Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz.

When Stan bought a membership at the new Mill Creek Country Club some three decades ago, Jeff and Jim spent hours there honing their games. And when they needed instruction, it was Dad who provided the tips.

“I never really got a lesson,” Jeff said. “He brought me up.”

Likewise, Mark Strickland learned the game mostly from his father. “My dad taught me how to play golf,” he said. “He’s my swing coach.”

Jeff remembers his son as a toddler “in the backyard with a club in his hand. He was the cutest little kid, following me around like a little shadow, saying ‘Can I hit one? Can I hit one?’”

These days, Jeff went on, “(Mark) has come so far in such a short time. He’s got an awesome swing. I didn’t think he’d be beating me so fast.”

For now, Jeff is usually still the longest off the tee, as determined in a poll of the three Stricklands.

“But not by much,” Stan said. “And at any given time, anybody can still get the other guy. … It doesn’t happen too often, but when I’m on I can still hit it with him.

“And I see Mark beating us all by next year,” he added.

Mark, meanwhile, is probably the straightest hitter and has the best pure swing, while Jeff has the best short game and is the best putter. And Stan got the highest marks for golfing demeanor and savvy.

The Stricklands are not the only three-generation golfing family in Snohomish County, of course, but they are surely one of the best. At the County Am in late May, all three Stricklands played in the first division, for golfers with the lowest handicaps. Jeff and Mark played well enough to reach the next-to-last foursome on the final day.

“It was pretty cool when I was teeing off with my kid at the County Am,” Jeff said. “I got some chills on that one.”

“And I would’ve loved to have been there, too,” Stan said.