Lyford finds wife, life in golf

When the Long Beach State coed beside him at the driving range sent wayward tee shots toward the 49ers' baseball diamond, Keith Lyford took the polite route.The former PGA Tour player offered his advice.But just what were his intentions?"He asked if I wanted any help with my swing," she said, remembering that outing of 24 years ago. "I wasn't sure at first. You know, you get that a lot when you're a girl golfer."The business-like Lyford admits he has a hard time coping when his golfing expertise doesn't register with others. Cindy Mah luckily turned out to be the impressionable type. Barely a year after they met, the Stockton-product and one-time pro golfer married the man who's now Auburn Country Club's golf director. "If someone doesn't respond to what I'm teaching, I take it personally," Lyford said. "Maybe that's what's driven me to be better. I think about it all night sometimes. Maybe I'm a little too serious."Lyford has a proven knack of helping golfers of all ability-levels. Those seeking a cheerleader should look elsewhere, but those looking to use technological advances however are in good company. And in 2003, Golf Magazine named the 53-year-old - who years ago finished ahead of Mark O'Meara and Fred Couples in a PGA Tour qualifying tournament - one of the nation's top 100 golf instructors.Auburn Country Club is home to the V-1 computer, which Lyford uses to record his pupils' swings. They can in turn compare them to the mechanics of the nearly 700 touring pros whose swinging mechanics are also stored in the V-1's memory. Built-in quirks - like inverting Phil Mickleson to show him hitting right-handed - are an added bonus of the device.Not that he relies on a video screen to get his message across."Keith's knowledge of golf covers every aspect of the game," Auburn Country Club pro Jamie Harper said. "He can work with anybody. A lot of pros can see someone swing and see what the problem is, but it's a whole different story to actually translate it to the player...That's one thing he does very well." Long used to simply golf instruction, Lyford now also specializes handling budgets and other behind-the-scenes work at club in the midst of major changes. Several thousand square feet bigger than its predecessor, a newer restaurant is tentatively scheduled to open in May. A refurbished locker room will join several new greens and tee boxes on the golf course a month later. Auburn Country Club is also looking to streamline a former policy that included 28 different membership categories. "Ideally we want to bring that down to four," said Lyford, a club pro in Auburn since February of 2005. "It's a new challenge. A lot of it is doing what people (at a golf club) don't normally think about. We're not desperate for new membership anymore. We want to make it fair for everybody." Prior to Auburn, Lyford was a pro at Canterbury Country Club outside Cleveland. He was previously a teacher before that at Cranwell Resort two hours west of Boston in the Berkshire region of Massachusetts. He now lives with his wife of nearly 23 years and daughters Cheney (10) and Sienna (6) in Roseville. Call it another stop in a personal journey that reached a crescendo in 1981. Those who finish high enough on the PGA's annual qualifying "Q School" tournament receive spots on the upcoming season's Tour. Lyford placed fifth - ahead of the aforementioned pro standouts - several years after graduating from Cal State Northridge. He spent 1981 competing in 16 of the season's 31 PGA Tour events. The rules of the time made it easier for hopefuls who passed Q-School to enter tournaments as long as they survived the Monday qualifying round. "I traveled all over," Lyford said. "I was home (in Los Angeles) one weekend that entire season."But the ride didn't last. The next year, Tour rule-changes reserved more spots in tournaments for established pros and did away with Monday qualifying rounds, Lyford said. The idea was to allow more golfers to plan their schedules in advance.Lyford never made it back on the Tour. He was nursing a bad back in 1982 when he met a woman whose best golf days were ahead of her. Cindy played in two U.S. Opens (finishing 26th in 1993 at Indiana's Crooked Stick alongside her husband-turned-caddie) among other pro events.Roseville's Bob Niger first became Lyford's pupil over a year ago. He's since become one of the state's best amateur golfers, winning last year's Northern California Golf Association Player of the Year award in addition to five of the seven NCGA events he's entered in 2006."He's as technical as you want him to be," Niger said. "If you ask him a question, he has an answer that makes sense. He doesn't pull it out of thin air, but you don't go to him looking to be pumped up. I've taken lessons from literally 30 or 40 golf pros, and Keith is as good as anyone I've ever worked with."