© by Ray Sanchez 08.07.16
It’s not often that one gets to live a dream experience twice. But it happened to Art Alva, a former El 
Paso High School golf star and still a golf enthusiast.
You see, he attended his first professional golf tournament – a “Major” at that – last year. It was the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits Golf Course in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
And this year, when rain cancelled the third round of the 2016 PGA tournament, CBS decided to rerun the final round of the 2015 meet. Alva got to see his dream right there in his home all over again.
I FIRST MET Art way back in the 1950s when I was covering high school sports. He was young, he was handsome and he possessed one of the prettiest golf swings you’d ever want to see. So I was happy – and surprised – when I got a call from him some months ago.
He told me he had attended one of the Majors. Needless to say, he couldn’t stop talking about it, and here’s how it happened.
ALVA’S NEPHEW, Daniel Dominguez, is a pilot and director of aviation for the Kohler Company, which is headquartered in Green Bay. The company has several other planes and pilots but Dominguez personally flies the owner wherever he needs to go.
And when the PGA Championship was held in Wisconsin last year, Dominguez suddenly found himself with two tickets to the tournament. Who else to invite but his uncle, Art Alva, whom he knew loved the game.
And suddenly, Art, who is now 78, was living a dream.
HE HAS MANY memories of last year’s event, but some stick out more than others. For instance, when he and his nephew arrived in the parking lot of the tournament, he noticed more than 100 Mercedes parked in one section. He later learned that each player in the tournament is provided with one during the four days of the meet.
As for the players, he noticed they were all business. They were polite but deadly serious and didn’t mingle much with the fans.
AND AS FOR the course, Alva noticed how stark it was. “It was a links course,” he says. “That means there were no trees but plenty of trouble on either side of the fairway. On some holes, if a player hit left there were bunkers. Hit right and there was Lake Michigan.”
Alva saw one incident he’ll never forget. John Daly, a long-hitting pro and a former winner of the British Open, hit a 5-iron shot into Lake Michigan. He was so disgusted he threw the 5-iron into the lake, too. There were some people in a boat on the lake. They threw the 5-iron right back.
SOME OF THE holes were so long Alva was stunned. For instance, one hole was 518 yards long and it was a par 4!
Of course, most of the players are hitting the ball way over 300 yards these days. No one could have imagined such a thing when Art was playing in the 1950s.
“Some of the players now are 5-feet-6 or 5-feet-7 and they still hit it 300 yards,” he says admiringly.
No fans were allowed onto the fairway during play, of course. But there was one exception. Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers was allowed to walk on the fairways along with the players.
ART ALVA has had a couple of strokes and doesn’t play much anymore, but he was quite a golfer into his senior years. When he was 66 years old, he shot his age.
And he’s recorded not one, but two double eagles during his playing days, an almost unheard-of feat.
One can only imagine what a thrill it was for him to watch the PGA meet again.
And how thankful he must be to his nephew, Dominguez, who, by the way, once flew around the world with another El Pasoan, Chris Wall. But that’s another story