Groton - Want your golf score to soar?

Become a pro. Your handicap's sure to start climbing.

One of the last things a golf pro - not to be confused with a pro golfer - does, you see, is golf.

”I try to get out there once a week,” says Todd Goodhue, the pro at Shennecossett Golf Course, host today and Tuesday of the 26th Connecticut Senior Open, whose 168-player field features top professionals and amateurs from more than a dozen states.

Before he became a pro, Goodhue, then living in Florida, golfed all the time. Before he could afford to play more than once a week, he'd regularly hit 500 to 600 balls a day at a driving range. When he qualified as a card-carrying member of the Professional Golf Association, his handicap was a big fat zero.

”I'm probably around a 4 now,” he says.

For all the skill he has honed, all the knowledge of the game he possesses, Goodhue, on a given day, is more likely to draw upon his training in customer relations and marketing. The psychology degree he earned at Southern Connecticut State University following his 1981 graduation from Old Saybrook High School doesn't hurt, either.

”My first responsibility is to the town (which owns the public course), to be profitable,” he says. “My second responsibility is to the membership. They're people who have laid out a significant amount of money. It's important that they feel they belong here.

”When they come in the door, it's 'How are you doing?' When they're done, it's 'How'd you do?' “

Goodhue and his assistant pros, Jeff Doerr and Casey Roan, are in the recruiting business, never more so than when they have to line up the 50 to 60 volunteers it takes to pull off the Senior Open, which Shennecossett is hosting for the 11th straight year, a stretch that coincides with Goodhue's tenure.

The Connecticut Section PGA settled on Shennecossett as the permanent site of the tournament after a 1997 land swap between the town and Pfizer Inc. led to major course renovations. The town traded property that included three holes for a waterfront swath where three new holes were developed.

Since then, selling “Shenny” hasn't always been a breeze.

Brutally hot, humid weather put three greens out of commission in 2003, contributing to a decline in the number of rounds played on the course over a three-year period. Shennecossett, which is supposed to be self-sufficient, finished that year $120,000 in the red, “which got the town manager's attention pretty quick,” Goodhue says.

Heeding the recommendations of a consultant, the town created an advisory board to review the course's policies and procedures, and the course took a new approach to setting fees. It now raises them about 3 percent a year to offset inflation and the rising cost of fuel and chemicals.

”It's still my favorite (local course),” says John Faraci, a Waterford retiree who's been a Shennecossett member for 20 years. “The greens are in good shape, and you can play all winter ...”

Indeed, the course is the only one in Connecticut that operates all year, closing only when snow covers the ground. Shennecossett and Winnapaug in Westerly, both Donald Ross designs, are the only courses between Providence and New York City that can make the year-round claim.

”The public's fickle,” Doerr, who's manning the pro-shop counter on a weekday morning, says. “They'll play wherever the surface is good.”

Goodhue cites research showing that about 60 percent of a golfer's decision about where to play on a given day is determined by the prevailing word-of-mouth about the relative condition of nearby courses. He and anyone else you ask credit Eric Morrison, the Shennecossett superintendent, for keeping the course in terrific shape.

All summer long, starting at 6:25 on weekdays and at 6 on weekends, Goodhue and his assistants book tee times, dispatching eight twosomes and foursomes an hour at intervals of eight or nine minutes.

The pressure will be on today and Tuesday to keep things on schedule during the Senior Open.

Pressure? Goodhue knows something about that.

When he took his one-day, 36-hole PGA qualifying test at Golden Gate Country Club in Naples, Fla., he had to shoot 76-77.

”So, on the first tee, I hook my drive out of bounds - a two-stroke penalty,” he says. “I still shot a 74.” And then a 73. He was on his way to becoming a golf pro.

After the Senior Open, maybe he'll get out there and play a little.

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