Sharing Some Memories Of Jack

Copyright © 2014 Albuquerque Journal It was the perfect day. Derek Gutierrez, then a junior at the University of New Mexico – who was dabbling with the idea of majoring in criminology or political science – had many things on his mind. But during this crisp, late afternoon in November 1994, school wasn’t one of them. This was a day to relax. It was a day to enjoy a round of golf with his mentor and close friend Jack Hardwick. It was a day to expand his knowledge of the game he’d discovered only a few years earlier, share some laughs, chow down and soak up all that autumn offers in the Land of Enchantment. It was one of the best days of Gutierrez’s young life. Until it was the last day of Hardwick’s. “I met Jack at Arroyo del Oso Golf Course that day,” says Gutierrez, now 45 years old and the director of the Santa Ana Golf Corporation.