On Course, Low Stakes Don’t Mean Less Anxiety

On a sunny June morning several years ago, Evelmiro Mateo, 75, joined a foursome for golf at the public course in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. It was a fine group of newly made partners, Mateo said. But things quickly deteriorated.

A member of the group, someone Mateo had never met before, began to show symptoms of a heart attack: his hands shook, he hyperventilated, his face grew flush and he broke out in a tremendous sweat.

In the end, though, the man did not ask for an ambulance. He asked, instead, if his new partners would mind not looking while he struck the ball. The whole thing, he said, had provoked an anxiety attack.

A remedy was devised. The three men would walk ahead of the anxious fourth, avert their eyes from his tee shot, and all four would hope for the best.

Alas, an ambulance was required — for Mateo, who wound up struck in the head by the tee shot.

“He almost killed me; I was bleeding all over,” said Mateo, who said he was rushed to Montefiore Medical Center.

The man repeated, over and over, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” Mateo said.

When asked if he ever saw, or spoke, to the man again, Mateo said, “No, he did enough to me already.”

Mateo’s tale of an anxiety attack on the golf course was one of several that were heard during a random stop at the course in Van Cortlandt Park. None of the golfers interviewed had read about the PGA Tour player Charlie Beljan, who had had a panic attack last week, only to forge ahead to his first career victory.

But the golfers in the Bronx did not need much prompting. Told the details of Beljan’s harrowing experience, they shook their heads in recognition.

William Larkin, 44, the general manager of the golf course in Van Cortlandt Park, said he had an anxiety attack trying to qualify for a golf tournament in Westchester County about 15 years ago and had to be taken to a hospital.

“I was getting winded going up small hills, my mouth was dry, my left arm got stiff,” he said. “I started thinking I was having a heart attack, which made everything worse.”

He said he spent two days in the hospital having tests. His symptoms had been found to be psychosomatic except for one. His worry had caused his stomach to produce higher-than-normal quantities of acids, which rose up and caused his left arm to stiffen.

“I’ll never forget that day,” he said.

There was a chilly drizzle at the old city golf course. Not a soul had shown up to play. Mateo was there to pick up his clubs; others were there in case someone actually did show up looking to play.

Kevin Sheehan, 24, the assistant general manager, said he had an anxiety attack in 2007 while trying to compete for a national collegiate tournament. He was the first up, and on his first cut — with his parents, coach, friends and adversaries watching — he hooked the ball deep into the woods, where it vanished.

He said he could feel himself start to hyperventilate as soon as the ball started to curve.

“I didn’t want to embarrass myself; I was representing my school, my team and myself most of all,” he said.

When it was time to take his provisional shot, after the other competitors all stroked straight, arcing, beautiful drives, Sheehan found his hands shaking so badly he could hardly put the tee in the ground.

“It’s kind of like someone kicks you in the stomach,” he said. “Your wind is gone, your heart’s pounding, your hands clam up, you can’t keep them from shaking.”

He added, “I wish I could’ve had a cigarette.”

Thom Mangan, 60, the assistant course superintendent, offered an unusual twist on the anxiety attack tale. He said his most memorable panic attack on a golf course came when he played too well.

One day in 1990, he had carded three birdies in a row, something he had never done before, something he has never done since. Instead of reveling in the accomplishment, he instead suddenly felt his heart begin to hammer, and his arms shook.

He demonstrated the sensation, looking like an ape shaking the bars of a cage at a zoo.

“It’s like whatever you were doing before was an unexamined life,” he said, “and then suddenly you’re waiting for the wheels to fall off.”

On his fourth hole, he made a terrible shot, barely clearing a small pond on a simple hole he had played countless times before.

“It was like a dummy slap,” Mangan said.

The friends he was playing with found the spectacle hilarious.

“They were laughing; they’re my buddies, how do you think they’d act?” he said. “It was a reality check.”