Bob Rickman has been waiting for the day when his life revolves around golf, not work.

It's coming.

The Edgefield County resident, a regional vice president for SP Newsprint Co., plans to retire this year at 60, though he hasn't set a date.

"This is going to be the best thing that ever happened to me; my golf has just started," Rickman said.

The newfound freedom will give Rickman more time for his varied golf interests.

They range from playing (he's a scratch golfer and the current senior club champion at Mount Vintage Plantation); working as a volunteer with golf organizations; helping out-of-town golf fans attend a Masters Tournament practice round; opening up his home to tournament golfers when they come to town; and writing golf poetry.

Yes, golf poetry. Rickman has written about 50 poems on golf, at least 10 of which have been published in golf magazines.

"I'm going to dedicate the rest of my life to golf and family," he said. "I decided last spring that this is what I want to do. I want to see what I can accomplish in golf (as a player) as well as giving back. I'm a good player; I just never had the opportunity to play."

RICKMAN CAN'T WAIT TO SEE how he fares in national, state and local tournaments once he has the opportunity to practice during the week. Still, as a weekend golfer who resumed playing competitively in the past year, he made it to match play in August's U.S. Senior Amateur and has a second- and third-place finish in the senior division on the local Regions Cup circuit. He also made the South Carolina team for the season-ending Regions Cup Matches, posting a 2-2-1 record.

Through 38 years of marriage, Rickman's wife, Cyndy, has learned how to read her husband when he comes home from a round of golf. She knows better than to ever ask how he played. She does ask if he had fun.

"I can usually tell if he's played well or not," she said. "He doesn't talk too much if he's played bad. He's quiet, as he replays every hole. I give him time and space."

After awhile, Rickman will tell her about the round. It is often over dinner at a restaurant.

"That's my payback -- going out to dinner," Cyndy said. "If he's played well, I'll ask him what was his best hole, and somehow that takes us around all 18 holes. He tells me all the shots he made."

Cyndy never has taken up golf. She wouldn't be a good playing partner for her husband, who takes the game very seriously.

"I'm not competitive," she said. "I'd go out for the fun of it, and he can't understand that sometimes. I enjoy the game; I just don't play it."

Bob Rickman likes to give back to the game because it helped smooth his path along life's journey.

"I grew up very modestly," said Rickman, who moved to Augusta at age 10 from his native Virginia and played golf for what was then Augusta College. "Golf motivated me through high school and college and gave me entry into the business world. In my opinion, it's the best game that's ever been invented. It's a game where you govern yourself.

"It's such a game where one's character is revealed," Rickman added. "It's a game where you get a chance to not only learn the rules, but apply them. In other games, you might have an umpire or an official. You can't interpret the rules in the middle of a fast break in basketball. In golf, you can."

Rickman recently did just that. While playing in the South Carolina Tournament of Champions in Pawley's Island, S.C., Rickman called a one-shot penalty on himself for grounding a club in a hazard. He finished 10th. Without the penalty, he would have been sixth.

"He's always felt a person should be responsible for his own actions, and golf gives him that opportunity," Cyndy said. "When he goes out to play, it's a challenge for him. He tries to play better than he did the day before. If he makes a mistake, he's the responsible person for it."

RICKMAN LOVES TO SHARE his enjoyment of the game with others, especially when it comes to the Masters Tournament, where he has been a volunteer for the past 34 years.

He's a "standing scorer" on the 18th green, which means he supplies information to the announcer behind the green, who then relays it to the gallery.

"It's been a great part of my life: sharing what I've learned about the history of golf and Augusta National," he said.

During vacations or on weekly business trips, Rickman often wears one of his "75 or so" Masters shirts when he goes to dinner. The famous Masters logo is a surefire icebreaker in a strange place.

"I've had thousands of conversations because of that," Rickman said. "The Masters is a universal conversation piece. I can't tell you how many times I've met people because of that (the Masters shirts)."

When Rickman starts talking to a stranger about the Masters, the conversation often turns to attending the tournament.

"They'll say, 'I've always wanted to go to the Masters.' I say, 'Write down your name, and I'll send you a practice-round ticket.' Not a year goes by that I don't give away a practice-round ticket to somebody I don't even know. And they come, because I get thank-you notes."

It even happened once when Rickman and his wife were on an Alaskan cruise. The Rickmans hooked up a New Jersey couple with tickets.

"When he offers people tickets, they can't believe it," Cyndy Rickman said. "He'll tell them, 'I have a ticket and you're welcome to it.' "

That comes only after Rickman is sure the person will appreciate the experience of attending a Masters practice round.

"Anyone who is a golfer, or a golf fan, needs to experience the Masters once in his life and Bob wants them to, and thinks they should," Cyndy said.

Soon after Rickman offers the ticket, he gets a nudge from his wife.

"I elbow him and tell him, 'Do not invite them to stay with us; we have a full house.' He wants to overdo the hospitality."

His wife can be overruled.

"If it's a 70-year-old guy who says his lifelong dream is to see the Masters and he doesn't have a way to do it, he's going to get a ticket, and he's going to stay with us," Rickman said.

RICKMAN STARTED HIS golf volunteer work in the early 1980s, though he wonders how he did it. At the time, he had started a family (the Rickmans have a 33-year-old son, Carter Quarles), was working full-time and attending graduate school at night. There was no time for golf.

"I missed my involvement with the game, and I had a yearning to get involved," Rickman said.

Along the way, he has volunteered and worked more than 140 tournaments as an official for the Georgia State Golf Association (until he moved to South Carolina in 2004), the PGA of America, the American Junior Golf Association, the NCAA, and the Hogan and Nike tours.

Cyndy said her husband does the volunteer work out of "sheer pleasure," but she knows there is more to it than that.

"When Bob was a junior golfer, there were so many adults that encouraged him to enjoy the game," she said. "I think he wants to repay that by encouraging the young people.

"That's why he particularly likes working junior tournaments, where he sees the young people aspiring to be PGA players and watching them come back from year to year. As Bob likes to point out, he's never met a juvenile delinquent who is a junior golfer."

It was through his volunteer work that Rickman met instructor Danny Elkins, a former Georgia PGA Teacher of the Year who lives in Roswell, Ga. Rickman told Elkins that if any of his students, or friends, were playing in a tournament in or near Atlanta (where Rickman lived from 1991 to 2004) and then Augusta, they had a place to stay.

Rickman estimates he and Cyndy have played host to about 25 golfers, including Luke List, a 2005 Masters participant.

Once he retires, Rickman will have more time to spend with those golfers, and maybe even play a round with them.

"When he retires, I think he will probably play the best golf of his life," Cyndy said. "The unfortunate thing is, because of his age, he's not as strong as he was. But he's gotten smarter with his play."

One thing's for sure: Rickman won't ever get bored with golf.

"The game gave him something to achieve as a young boy, and he's continued with that desire to get better," his wife said. "We're hoping this year is going to be the best of the best."

Reach David Westin at (706) 823-3224 or david.westin@augustachronicle.com.

SCRATCH ROUND POETRY

It was a hot day in St. Simons Island, Ga., when Bob Rickman wrote his first golf poem. Not that he thought anything of it.

"I didn't know I could write poetry or it would be anything anybody cared about," Rickman said.

He was inspired when a fellow golfer complained about the mosquitoes the players had battled during a round in a Georgia State Golf Association Mid-Amateur event in the mid-1980s.

"He said, 'I wish somebody would write something about these damn bugs.' " Rickman said.

So Rickman wrote a poem on a napkin and left it on the table.

Someone picked it up, and the next day it was posted on the large outdoor tournament scoreboard. That's why it's untitled. Here is that poem:

"That's not very good," Rickman said. "It was on a napkin drinking beer. That was a joke. I wasn't trying to do anything. But some of the best ones are the ones I didn't even keep."

One of those he gave Augusta native Charles Howell when Howell was the No. 1-ranked junior golfer in the country. Rickman didn't keep a copy of it.

Not all of Rickman's poems are about golf. He's written hundreds about weddings or other special personal occasions, but only if he's been asked.

"I've got to be given a topic," he said. "It's a strange thing. I can write one in five minutes."

"He'll sit down and, all of a sudden, I'll see him grab his paper and pen and it just flows," said his wife, Cyndy Rickman. "He doesn't know I'm there. He kind of zones out with it.

"He doesn't have to work at it; the rhymes come almost naturally for him," she said. "He's very good with words."

So good, in fact, that a poem helped him get the attention of his future bride.

"After our first date, he sent me a dozen red roses with a poem," said Cyndy, who still keeps that poem in a safety deposit box. "That meant a lot to me. It showed me he's a very sensitive person."

With his love of the Masters Tournament, Rickman surely has written poems about that subject.

Wrong.

"Nobody's ever asked me," Rickman said.

-- David Westin