Golf tourney started by Clovis High boys

I have never played a game of golf! I play a good game of chess. But my class of CHS 50 athletes has this INZ AND OUTZ Golf Tournament each summer over in Albuquerque. They keep telling me they are the best golfers in New Mexico!

You see, it was these two classmates of mine from Clovis High School that came up with the idea they could play golf. They must have been bored with nothing to do but fiddle around with honey-do jobs. I think the wives drove them out of the house as they were getting underfoot. How some of them ever got a wife in the first place beats me.

And the boys that came up with the idea of an annual INZ and OUTZ Golf Tournament were, or used to be, the best athletes Clovis ever had, nearly. A few of them just barely managed to graduate. But boy, they could really play football and basketball back around the ’50s, especially Carroll Faris and Cecil Davis, the original Over-the-Hill-Brat-Pack as they like to call themselves.

Well they just finished their fourth annual golf tournament last summer in Albuquerque. In addition to the previous years’ golfers — Gerald Clancy, John Hager, J. T. Isham, Buddy Prince, Leon Faris, Clarence Rehorn, Freddie Robinson, Pascal Wickard, and Cecil Davis and Carroll Faris — were Ducky Isham and Pete Isham being added to the group this year.

You have to remember that those Clovis athletes living in Albuquerque are called the Inz and the Clovis boys living outside of Albuquerque are called Outz.

This year the Inz won by one point. In the tournament’s four years, the score has never been more than one stroke apart. Everyone reports that this year’s tournament was the best one yet, and plans are already under way for this summer’s tournament.

Now listen up! There is talk that O. T. Rozzell and Richard McKinney of Clovis will be in this summer’s tournament, and many of the athletes of the Clovis bunch feel that Rozzell will walk away with the winning trophy. He is so good that Cecil and Carroll have never before invited Rozzell to play — they are afraid he will show the Albuquerque boys up.

Cecil Davis reported that he not only keeps his leukemia in check, but has recently received a heart pacemaker. He says his doctors were told to put truth serum in his pacemaker, but many of us have our doubts. At any rate he is feeling better than ever and that fact is certainly reflected in the quality of his golf game.

As usual there is no money for the winners other than bragging rights. And there were many braggarts. Oh, they do have a few trophies that Carroll carves each year.

The wives don’t get to play in the tournament. They go off somewhere to pout and have their “tea time,” with Carroll’s wife, Buck, hosting the tea. They have finger foods and flavored teas, and some say they also have plain old “girl talk,” which is mostly about the so-called athletes.

The exact date of the 2006 INZ AND OUTZ Golf Tournament will be published in the Clovis News Journal as the date draws nearer. I think it’s in June or July.

I hark back to the good old days of 1950 Clovis High School and recall Miss Clark, who taught English, asking the class to write sentences containing the words “deduct,” “defeat,” “detail” and “defense.” Carroll Faris came up with, “Defeat of deduct went over defense before the detail.”

Don McAlavy is Curry County’s historian. He can be contacted at:

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