Craig Parry sits in the family room of his split-level home high on a cliff in Sydney’s inner-west and gazes across a massive expanse of the Parramatta River.
It’s 200-metres, and then some more, across to land. Look down and see his swimming pool, then his tennis court and tied up at his private wharf is his 40-foot cruising boat – appropriately named Off Course – that takes him anywhere that takes his fancy.
Not so long ago it was Hamilton Island in the Whitsundays, a distance of 1000 nautical miles and travelling at 21 knots. It took five days, sailing between 5am and 4pm each day before docking to refuel and spend the night.
It’s idyllic, and yes he has done quite nicely financially for a guy whose swing Johnny Miller once infamously described as “one that would make Ben Hogan puke.”
We visited him just before he headed to Melbourne for a rare appearance on the golf course in recent years to play the Australian Masters at Metropolitan and, unlike Charles Dickens, Parry had no great expectations.
Yet, he made the cut, and closed with a three-under 69 for tied 46th. The positive there in that it was the first time this year he got four rounds under his belt in a tournament.
The visit was twofold. Firstly, to talk about this week’s Emirates Australian Open at The Australian where, seven years ago, he finally held aloft the Stonehaven Cup, a championship trophy he surely let slip 17 years earlier when he was beaten in a sudden-death playoff with little-known American John Morse.
And, secondly, his 50th birthday is on the not-so-distant horizon – January 12, 2016 to be exact – and a rebirth of a fulltime tournament career beckons, should he bother.
But, first the memories, and then what maybe lies ahead.
That Sunday seven years ago, Parry had his redemption 17 years after Morse won the Open before departing back to the relative obscurity from whence he came.
James Nitties and Nick O’Hern both had chances to force a playoff in 2007 as Parry waited in the scorer’s hut with an 11 under total, but messed up.
Parry was the champion, and a popular one at that. Even the heavens joined the applause of the large gallery as it let loose with driving rain, thunder and lightning to provide a spectacular finale.
That year was a poor one in Japan for the bloke affectionately known Paz and he was written off in tournament calculations. Quietly, he fancied his chances, so too did his good mate former Test cricketer Doug Walters who snapped up the early $101 quote.
“To finally win the Open was very special. It is the highlight of my career bigger that the World Championship event (the 2002 WGC-NEC Invitational), bigger than the Scottish Open,” Parry says.
Yep, and even better than winning the 2002 New Zealand Open when the now world No 19 was in town.
“I was leading amateur in 1984 and I stood on the green with Tom Watson (the champion). I was 17 years of age and said to myself, ‘That’s what I want to do. I want to be the best.’
“I got close a number of times. I never thought I’d actually get there. It’s still an amazing feeling, the best ever.”
It was at The Australian where he won his first tournament in Australia – the 1987 NSW Open – and the story was he was so broke he slept in his old panel van – The Beast – in the club car park during the tournament.
“That was a beat-up by (the late) Phil Tresidder (the golf writer at the time for Sydney’s Daily Telegraph). Never let the facts get in the way of a good story,” Parry says.
He first played the Jack Nicklaus redesigned course just after his 16th birthday in 1983 and it was a course that suited his eye with the routing of the holes predominately demanding left to right shots into the greens. He felt that was his advantage over the rest of the field in 2007.
Now, Nicklaus has redesigned the famous Kensington course a second time. Greens have been raised and the almost prohibitive rough around them has been given a No 1 haircut.
“I stand in the bunkers and more or less and I am more or less looking at blue sky,” the 1.68m (5ft 6in for those too old to come to terms with metrics in height),” Parry said.
It’s been lengthened, too, that adds a few extra kilos to his saddlebag and chances of a successful Open defence at The Australian seven years on.
We’ll get to extra kilos again shortly.
Parry says Nicklaus, this time round, has made it easier for the members as they can use a seven iron or putter up onto the raised greens (minus their ankle-deep rough) while the pros will still use varying degrees of lob wedges. Short side oneself and it’s almost an automatic bogey.
Just a few weeks ago, Parry won his first-ever pro-am around Kooinda Waters, a course he co-designed with one of Australia’s leading chaps in that field – Ross Watson. Then, he won a week or so later at the Barnwell Park public course where his wife Jenny is a member.
So, there’s form on the board, but at picnic meetings not the Melbourne Cup of Australian golf.
And, now to that 50th birthday party in less than 14 months time. It was a helluva party when he won the open with around 50 friends turning up. The local bottle shop sent lager, with congratulations and compliments, and Chinese takeaway was ordered.
Then, will he contest the riches of the Fat Bellies Tour as Lee Trevino once described the US Champions Tour?
People in glasshouses shouldn’t, well, throw stones but the undeniable truth is Parry’s shadow doesn’t grow any less. Grades and IBF made several references to the little bloke having been in a good paddock early on in the telecasts from Metropolitan.
I ask him: Are you a pro golfer or just a lay-about here looking out over the wonderful view?
“Geez, I don’t know. That’s a tough question, Pete. I’ve never wanted to say I’m retiring because if you’re retiring that means you can’t play again. I am just a bit over a year from playing senior golf. I’ve no injury worries apart from a knee that gives me a bit of a niggle occasionally,” he replies.
Do you want to play senior golf?
“That’s another tough question.”
Why, because you’re so comfortable?
“Is it something I want to do,” he answers with a question. “I can’t answer that. I’m just sort of going with the flow.”
And, then, he anticipates the next question.
“Yes, I would have to get fitter. I’d have to play more and I’d have to jump on a bike. I don’t want to go and grind hitting balls on the range for eight hours a day and we’re doing alright (financially),” he says.
“I never have to work again and I can say, bugger it, just enjoy the good life. I can either disappear or just keep playing events here – or I can play senior golf. I’m exempt into both Europe and Japan, and into final qualifying in the US.
“I really don’t know what I want to do.”
Should he take the plunge, his existing sponsors would surely remain on board. He’s been with Schweppes for 22 years, Callaway for 20 and more recently Kooinda Waters and On Course golf merchandising, appearing in that company’s television adverts.
Whatever, he will still be Paz, one of the great blokes of golf who’ll be your friend for life.
I asked him after he won the 2007 Open what he’d like written on his epitaph and he said: “He was just a normal guy who occasionally had a few rounds of golf.”
He is both that, and then some more, but the question still remains about the next stage in his career. Will the view and the good life mean the occasional few rounds of golf will be in social company only in the future?