By Jamie Norton
Scott DeCandia thought he had retired from being a golf pro when the course he was running in Maryland changed ownership. He’d done a lot as both a golfer and a golf pro – traveled the world, competed in (and won a couple) long-drive competitions, met legends like Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, and Sam Snead. At age 59, maybe it was time to think about laying low.
Then he got a call from his dad.
The Lake St. Catherine Country Club, which Joe DeCandia ran for years and where he still teaches clinics to this day, and where Scott grew up working on his drives by aiming at the green house across the street, was looking for a new golf pro.
“The guy that was here walked off, and they asked me about what (Scott) was doing,” Joe said. “I called him, he came up, and – ‘Boom’ – that was it.”
“The opening was there, it was the right time,” Scott said. “And when something is the right time, it works out flawlessly. I came in in the middle of the season and I had to get used to everything, and now I can say, ‘Okay, I saw what I had to see – this is my year.’”
Scott is in his first full season as LSCCC’s golf pro, a position his father held there in the 1960s and 70s. Joe left the Country Club after 17 years but has been back, in one capacity or another, since 2001, and is thrilled to have his son – the bull-headed kid who used to bet his buddies a quarter that they couldn’t outdrive him – now all grown up and running the show.
“It was like a dream that I had in my subconscious, and then I was shocked when it really happened,” Joe said. “It’s fate.”
“We had to come here with him, and we had to occupy our time chipping and putting and playing golf,” Scott said of himself and his brother, Anthony. “Before this was 18 holes, I used to hit golf balls across the street at that green house and bet people a quarter. You could get a Hershey Bar and a chocolate milk for a quarter. Golf was not pushed down my throat – I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it because I excelled at hitting it far, and that’s where the long drive thing came in.”
A big, strong kid, Scott first excelled at something else – hurling a shot put. He was an All-American in that event at St. Joseph’s High in Montvale, N.J., where he was ranked in the Top 10 in the nation in 1974, and he attended Eastern Kentucky University on a track scholarship. But even after making the All-Conference team three years in a row there, he knew that particular talent would only take him so far.
“I did pretty good just in hanging around a golf course,” he said. “There was no future in shot putting. But (golf) is a good way of life. That lake and this place were a good recipe for me.”
Shortly after college, Scott gave his golf game a spin on what he termed a “mini-tour,” and he won $6,000 with a third-place finish. But when his first long-drive championship pulled in $18,000 in 1980, he decided that would be a more lucrative path for him.
“I found that I could do one event, one outing, or one long drive and win more or be paid more,” he said. “I only worked an hour. So, I kind of went that route, and made my career with a group of other guys.”
That group, which deemed itself the “350 Club” because they could all drive the ball more than 350 yards, traveled all over the world and, when the event was held as part of the PGA Tour, they got to meet guys like Nicklaus, Palmer, Snead and others.
“I got to meet all the guys (my dad) read about,” he said.
Scott estimates his “heyday,” as he calls it, was between 1979 and 1995, when he participated in a ton of events. But eventually he wanted to prove he could do more than just knock the ball out of sight.
That was when he decided to begin fine-tuning his overall game, increase his knowledge about golf, and yes, lean on good old Dad for advice.
“I’ll get his opinion, and he’ll ask my opinion. We work well together,” Scott said. “He’s a legend. Even though I did my thing in long drive, I’ve got pretty big shoes to fill.”
Joe DeCandia came to the Lake St. Catherine Country Club in 1961 after his professional partner in a Pro-Am at Crawford Notch, N.H., suggested that he was good enough to be a golf pro, too.
“He helped me write a resume. I sent out 40. I got four job offers,” Joe said. “Since this was the closest one, we came up.”
So he and the family got to spend summers at beautiful Lake St. Catherine and, while Scott was working on his longballs, Joe was busy competing among Vermont’s finest golfers. He competed on the Vermont leg of the PGA Tour among the top 16 golf pros in the state during 14 of the 17 years he was at the LSCCC.
“I had some great experiences,” Joe said. “They always knocked me out one way or the other. But I learned a lot and I was able to play well.”
Some of those great experiences included a confidence boost from one of golf’s greats at the time, Bobby Locke, winner of four British Open Championships.
“(He said), ‘Laddy, you’re a good putter – you’ve got a fine stroke,’” Joe remembered. “That’s all he said. It wasn’t Joe (Schmo) or somebody, it was Bobby Locke. So, in my mind, I became a good putter.”
So, between that and having none other than legendary NFL coach Vince Lombardi as his high school baseball coach at St. Cecilia’s in Englewood, N.J., teaching has become pretty well ingrained in the senior DeCandia’s persona. It’s his favorite part of being around the game now, which is why, even at age 85, he still teaches clinics for kids here every summer and for seniors down in Florida in the winter.
“The main thing for me, anywhere, has been about teaching,” Joe said.
So what’s one of the lessons he takes with him everywhere?
“If you ask any kid that takes the clinic here, ‘What did Mr. D. say about golf – G.O.L.F.?” he quipped. “Golf is the ‘Game Of Life’s Fragments.’ Sometimes you hit the ball right on the screws and it hits a twig and it bounces into the woods. (But) after hitting a bad shot, don’t moan. Rather, look at it as an opportunity to make an amazing recovery.”
And what did Scott learn from having this great golfer – and great teacher – as a father?
“Probably not as much as I should have,” he said with a laugh. “Stubbornness because I didn’t want to be beat was good. But you have to go through it to take something away. Even in winning, there’s a learning experience.”
And even though Joe isn’t Lake St. Catherine’s go-to pro these days, he’s still kicking around, teaching clinics, helping out if they need anything, and available to his son for any new learning experiences.
“I guess I’m the emeritus,” Joe said. “I’m just here. I’m still around.”
As is Scott – a lot.
“It’s a 14-hour-a-day job, and I know that because he was here,” Scott said. “You learn from, what I consider is, the best, and I can’t leave this place.”
And if he’s anything like his father, he probably never will.
