Job of a lifetime: Everett’s Chuck West gets to work The Masters

Published 11:54 pm Tuesday, April 6, 2010

As a longtime golf professional and all-around sports fan, Chuck West of Everett has seen some great golf courses and other memorable sports venues.

But this week promises to be the best of all.

This week West is visiting the historic, hallowed and azalea-scented grounds of Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Ga.

And he’s not there as a spectator. The 43-year-old West, a member of the PGA Rules Committee, is one of a half dozen committee members invited to work as rules officials at The Masters, the most prestigious golf tournament in the world.

“This is going to be a pretty special week,” said West, who works at Mukilteo’s Harbour Pointe Golf Course. “I think the aura of Augusta will be a little hard to swallow when it starts.”

West, a onetime head pro at Seattle’s Sand Point Country Club and Oak Harbor’s Whidbey Golf and Country Club, traveled to Georgia on Sunday, and has been helping to mark the course — yellow paint lines around water hazards, red lines around lateral water hazards — on Monday, Tuesday and today.

For the four days of the tournament, which begins Thursday, West will be on the course to give rulings as needed. He might be stationed at one hole a day, or maybe he’ll move between two holes, though he’ll learn his exact assignments today.

Regardless of where he ends up, West will be savoring the opportunity to be at one of the great events in all of sports.

“We’ll be out there Monday, Tuesday and (today),” he said, “so by the time the tournament starts on Thursday I’d like to think I’ll be over my awe of the place. But then on Thursday morning as (honorary starters) Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer are hitting the first balls off the tee, it’ll be pretty hard not to think ‘Wow, I’m here.’”

Years ago, West remembers former Inglewood Golf Club head pro Rick Adell telling him, “There are only a few things in life that live up to your expectations, and The Masters is one of them.”

West has been a PGA of America member for 17 years and a member of the PGA Rules Committee for 14 years. Since the PGA Tour has its own rules committee he does not officiate those events, but he has worked at four PGA Championships, most recently the 2008 tournament at Oakland Hills Country Club in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.

“When you’re out there working, you have to know the rules and you have to be able to interact with the players and be able to use some people skills,” he said. “Sometimes the ruling is going to be good (for a player), but sometimes the ruling you give them is one they’re not going to like.”

Unlike some sports, where officials must continually make subjective decisions, in golf “the rules are the rules, for the most part,” he said. “And we’re just applying the rule to the situation.”

The most common rulings, he went on, have to do with balls that stop against or near temporary immovable obstructions (TIOs) like grandstands, TV cables or TV towers. Players are allowed to take drops, which can be done without calling for an official. But occasionally a golfer wants to be sure his remedy will not incur a subsequent penalty.

“A lot of times,” West said, “the players know the rules pretty darned good. But what they want is confirmation for what they’re going to do. They’re saying, ‘Here’s where I am, here’s where I want to drop it under the rules, am I OK?’

“If a player has a ball in his hand, other than on the green, then I need to be there and be available if he has questions. I want to be visible so he has help if he needs it.”

Even though golf’s rule book is clearly defined, there are still gray areas. For instance, a player might encounter a soggy fairway and ask for casual water relief when really the ground is just wet. So an official is summoned and a ruling is given.

And if the player is unhappy, “he can always ask for a second opinion,” West said. “So at that point we call in a rover,” which is another official who moves around the course instead of staying on one hole.

Generally, these matters are resolved peaceably. Angry disputes are rare, and officials and players usually interact affably when they cross paths in and around the clubhouse.

The game’s best players “are just normal people,” West said. “I don’t want to name names, but there are some people who have a public aura of being spoiled. But then when you talk to them one on one, they’re great guys.”

Once the tournament begins, he said, “they’re just playing golf like you and I. They’re playing for more money, they’re a heck of a lot more talented, and they’re ridiculously competitive. But the game is the same and the rules are the same.”

And this week in Augusta, on one of the most famous golf courses in the world, Everett’s Chuck West will be helping to enforce those rules.