Danny Bibb, Millennium Hall of Fame

Richard Dunn

Danny Bibb has teed it up with myriad celebrities and some of the

biggest names in golf, including an 18-hole tour of Pebble Beach with

Arnold Palmer and a round at Big Canyon Country Club with fellow member

Tiger Woods.

But if Bibb could have one wish granted, he would pull out his driver

with the man who introduced him to the game -- his grandfather.

“If I had one day to relive in my life, it would be with him,” Bibb

said. “(Grandfathers) are something special.”

When Bibb was 13, his family moved to Newport Beach and his late

grandpa, John T. Bibb, explained what the birds and bees meant on a golf

course. It was the beginning of a lifelong love affair with the game and

the first seeds of what would sprout into the best player in Newport

Beach.

Bibb, 49, is the Newport-Mesa community’s all-time men’s club champion

with 11 titles -- six at Big Canyon, five at Irvine Coast Country Club

(now Newport Beach), all won between 1977 and 1984.

From a young teenager who hardly knew anyone in town to a successful

real estate broker with more golf invitations than new homes in the area,

Bibb is a former course-record holder at Big Canyon, Irvine Coast and the

Mesa Linda Course at Costa Mesa Golf & Country Club.

On April 29, 1996, Woods, a Stanford sophomore playing in the Pacific

10 Conference men’s golf championships at Big Canyon, fired a 61 in the

first round to break Bibb’s 10-year-old course record of 65 -- with Bibb

in the gallery to witness it.

Bibb, who won club championships at both Big Canyon and Irvine Coast

in the same year in 1977, ’79 and ‘82, said golf became an addiction

after his grandpa got him started. “I started playing 300-plus days a

year, starting at age 13, all the way through high school,” said Bibb, a

standout at Corona del Mar High who shot his first par round at age 14 at

Irvine Coast.

In 1967, Bibb helped the Sea Kings capture the CIF Southern Section

championship as a junior and was named the team’s most valuable player.

“Everyone laughed at golfers back then, but we all loved golf and

played together all the time,” Bibb said, referring to CdM teammates that

included Mike Reehl, now the Director of Golf at Santa Ana Country Club,

Marshall Savage, Peter Nelson, Ray Harbor and John Hutchins.

“The six of us grew up together at Irvine Coast and played golf all

summer long after the school year.”

CdM once had a 2 1/2-year streak of 40 straight match victories, but

Bibb said after high school he “went into a five-year slump in golf,”

ending his dream, for all intents and purposes, of playing on the PGA

Tour.

Bibb, who also played football at CdM and was captain of the golf team

his senior year and held the low-stroke average on the Sea Kings’ only

CIF championship golf team, also played at Orange Coast College and UCI.

Like many avid golfers, Bibb enjoyed his peak playing years between

ages 25 and 35, when he was dominating the area’s club golf landscape.

But some things get better with time, like Bibb’s family and friends,

playing partners and fellow club members. This year, two of his good

buddies, Ron Lane and Peter Ueberroth, set him up with the surprise of

his life -- a round with Palmer, the king of golf, at one of the most

famous courses in the world, Pebble Beach.

Bibb, who has large color photographs of both Palmer and Pebble Beach

hanging on the walls of his modest Newport Beach office, said “it was the

ultimate golf game,” having grown up “worshiping (Palmer) all those

years” and then getting a chance to match him shot for shot on a crystal

clear day at Pebble Beach.

“(Palmer) knew how our match stood ... he won $10 from me,” said Bibb,

a five handicap who carded an 84 on that late April afternoon, two

strokes off Palmer’s pace, at a three-day Pebble Beach event called the

Swallows and hosted by the owners of Pebble Beach.

“We both have a love affair with golf, or an addiction, and, actually,

I just went through prostate cancer (like Palmer in January 1997),” Bibb

added. “My buddies (Lane and Ueberroth) know how much I love golf, so

they took care of me a little bit.”

Bibb, who completed his radiation treatments for prostate cancer in

late May, has played golf privately with numerous celebrities, including

Woods and Sandy Koufax. But nothing could match the experience of teeing

it up with his all-time favorite golfer on his all-time favorite course.

“It was a thrill to play with Tiger (last December), but when you’ve

grown up with Palmer all your life ... to play with Arnie was the

ultimate golf game,” Bibb said.

Bibb, who lists Pebble Beach, Augusta National, Pine Valley and

Cypress Point as the top four courses in the country, enjoys playing golf

with his wife, Lynda, but can’t talk any of his three children into the

game.

Bibb, today’s honoree in the Daily Pilot Sports Hall of Fame, lives in

Newport Beach with his family. His children are Lindsay, 21, D.J. (for

Danny, Jr.), 20, and Kristy, 13.