By Steve Powell

spowell@marysvilleglobe.com

MARYSVILLE – When many people retire, one of the things they often say is they want to play more golf.

But what do you do if golf has been your career.

“Play more golf,” said Gary Schopf, 66, of Marysville, who is retiring on Oct. 31 after 23 years as the golf pro at Camaloch Golf Course on Camano Island.

Prior to that, for 10 years he was the golf pro at Kayak Point.

Like many golf pros, who manage golf courses nationwide, Schopf had hopes of being a professional golfer on the PGA tour.

“You have to be so, so, so good,” he said, adding he was at a crossroads with a wife and two girls and decided that wouldn’t be the best thing to do.

Schopf didn’t even take up the game until age 22. He had thought about being on the Professional Bowlers Association tour. His grandpa got him interested in bowling at age 5, and he had his average up to about 220. He was ready to apply for the PBA tour in the mid-1970s when he watched a golf tournament and saw they were winning $200,000 a tournament. In the PBA, the winner took home $20,000.

“I thought I’d try golf,” he said. “I’ve always been quite athletic,” playing football, basketball and tennis in LaConner. He was the team’s No. 1 singles player for three years.

In golf, he built himself up to a plus-1 handicap, but because he taught himself, it “didn’t hold up under pressure.”

He started coaching at Stanwood High School and was told he shouldn’t teach the kids his way because it wasn’t the right way.

“It was a blow to my ego, but they were right,” he said, adding he then educated himself on the fundamentals. “I changed the way I played,” he said, adding it took him 10 years to do it right since he had played the wrong way for 10 years. His short game putting and chipping is his strong suit. “I used to hit it all over the planet,” he said of his drives. His best score ever is a 64 but he often shoots 67s.

“It’s easier to go from an eighteen handicap to an eight than for a two handicap to play scratch golf,” he said.

Schopf once came within two shots of getting a spot in the U.S. Open. He missed it by two, after getting a triple bogey on one Par 3.

“But I have no regrets. It’s been a fun ride,” he said.

As a golf pro, Schopf has one goal in mind – to make golf more enjoyable for you. He plans to keep giving lessons as he loves teaching.

He hasn’t ruled out trying for the Senior Tour. He said he’d have to practice more and get in better shape, which is something he hopes “he has the willpower to do.”

After three decades of playing basketball, he said he is bone on bone in his right knee. He plans to have surgery and go through rehabilitation.

When his wife retires from Boeing in a few years, they plan to upgrade their motorhome and become snowbirds, heading south for the winter. He also plans to keep bowling, even though his average has dropped below 200, which is “disheartening.”

Schopf said one of his most memorable golf shots was on hole No. 7 at Kayak Point, a 355-yard par 4. He got a hole-in-one there once, sitting the ball high up on a tee and driving if over the trees like a 9-iron.

“It cuts off a big chunk of that hole,” he said.

He also likes Hole 10 at Cedarcrest Golf Course because it’s a tough par 4, a “challenge.”

Some of his favorite holes are at Camaloch. But he’s probably a little biased because he helped create some of them. When he first started working there, the course just opened its second nine holes. The previous nine, built in the 1970s, were failing. So he helped to rebuild them one hole at a time. “I got to be the architect to design the greens,” he said.

Not only that, he actually shaped them with a bulldozer.

“We pride ourselves on our greens,” he said, adding Camano Island is a sunbelt, receiving much less rain than Marysville.