Baugh uses games to keep swinging

There was a time, during the middle of last year, when Bobby Baugh’s body became so swollen and fatigued that he had a tough time even getting a grip on his golf clubs.

Stricken with an extremely rare autoimmune disease called eosinophilic fasciitis, which caused the muscle tissue underneath his skin to thicken, the former TCU player saw his legs and arms swell like stretched water balloons.

“I could still golf,” Baugh, 53, said Tuesday. “But I couldn’t even do a simple thing like crouching to line up my putts.”

Today, the local financial adviser is lining up his shots just fine. Months after being diagnosed with the disease, the cause of which is unknown, Baugh scorched Brackenridge Golf Course with a 6-under 65 to capture the overall scoring crown of December’s Tournament of Champions event held by Golf San Antonio.

Baugh, using clubs with thinner grips to accommodate his still-swollen hands, missed only one green in regulation and needed just 29 putts in outdistancing playing partner Pat Youngs, the reigning senior city medalist, by five strokes.

“He was a warrior out there,” Youngs said.

Baugh, a former Conroe High School standout whose great uncle is NFL Hall of Famer Sammy Baugh, credits his faith – and golf – as major reasons.

The one-time youth pastor and motivational speaker has seen his psyche and golf swing tested in concert over the last year. It began when a lingering sinus infection and muscle and joint soreness sent him to the doctor. Last summer, a physician at the famed Mayo Clinic in Minnesota diagnosed him with a disease that has been discovered in fewer than 350 people over the past 35 years.

“No question, the game helped me, and it does,” Baugh said. “The challenge of golf – you can play good one week, and crappy the next – you just never get it. There’s always the challenge to be better, more consistent, a better putter, a better chipper, a better whatever.

“I love playing so much that I was ready to do whatever exercise and stretching I needed to do to play.”

Fortunately for Baugh, that was just what the doctor ordered.

Along with heavy medications designed to stymie the onset of the disease, he was ordered to attend physical therapy, undergo aggressive stretching sessions and to get out and exercise.

“I told the doctor that I was playing a lot of golf, walking the course three or four times a week, and he said that’s perfect,” Baugh said, chuckling. “I told him, ‘Doctor, I think I can do that.'”

His love affair with the game extends back to his childhood in Conroe, where a mentor, former PGA Championship runner-up Don Massengale, helped nurture his game. The result was a Class 4A state runner-up finish his junior season at Conroe High and an eventual transition to the collegiate alma mater of Massengale and his famous relative, Sammy Baugh.

“That was a good decision,” Bobby Baugh said. “I loved it there.”

At TCU from 1976-81, Baugh became a two-time All-Southwest Conference selection and often played in the same tournaments as University of Houston star John Stark, now a past Greater San Antonio senior titlist.

After graduating, Baugh was youth pastor for five years at Northeast Bible Church before becoming a national speaker for a San Antonio-based youth crisis hotline service. For more than a decade, he has worked for Planto Roe Financial as an adviser.

“You know, unlike other sports, golf ultimately is up to you,” said Gene Roe, a partner with Planto Roe who grew up with Baugh in Conroe. “You can’t miss a layup, and somebody gets a rebound and puts it back in for you. For the competitive golfer, second place is a loss.

“I think that kind of thing, for Bobby, ultimately helped in what he’s gone through. He’s very competitive by nature.”

Today, Baugh takes the drug Enbrel, famously endorsed by golfer Phil Mickelson in his battle against psoriatic arthritis, and it has helped significantly in reducing Baugh’s muscle and fascia tightness and swelling. His prognosis for an eventual full recovery is excellent.

“I do know one thing,” he said. “I don’t whine as much about a bad round as I used to.”

– Richard Oliver (source: My San Antonio)