Drive two hours west of Memphis and you’ll find River Oaks Golf Club in Searcy, Ark. Once there, chances are good you’ll see a pair of retired high school coaches playing against each other in what has become one of golf’s greatest ongoing—and lesser-known—rivalries. For 17 years and nearly 1,500 rounds, David Bevell, 75, and Russ Fullerton, 78, have faced off on the course, and they’ve enjoyed every minute of their battles—sort of.
“Most of the time we don’t really ‘enjoy’ our matches while we’re playing them,” Bevell explains. “To me golf is a grind—and to Russ, too—but there is great satisfaction in competing and hitting a pure shot or making a critical putt or hitting a shot when you absolutely have to.”
When these two square off, no money is at stake, but something much more valuable is on the line. Move over Ryder Cup, we’re talking about the Coaches Cup. The five-inch-tall, silver-plated trophy was purchased from a Goodwill store for $6 but has turned into a priceless prize for this pair of sassy septuagenarians.
“We’re good friends, but there have been times where we’ve played 18 holes and haven’t spoken 10 words to each other, except to say ‘good shot’ or something like that,” says Fullerton, who coached high school basketball in Missouri for a few decades before serving as an athletic director for another school. “It gets really, really intense.”
Bevell (in the red shirt) and Fullerton are good friends off the course but highly competitive on it.
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However, plenty of written words are associated with this longtime grudge match. At first, Fullerton was confused when he saw Bevell scribbling stuff down during their rounds. It turns out, he’s been keeping a log of every time he’s played golf since 1988.
“It’s grown over the years,” says Bevell, a former youth minister and teacher who also coached basketball, softball and golf in Memphis. “I wanted to write stuff down, so I wouldn’t forget. From time to time, I look back and read it, so I kind of get to play a round more than once.”
In those four decades of keeping stats and scores, keeping track of playing partners and making notes of funny lines or great shots, Bevell has amassed 10 volumes of notebooks worth of golf memories. The game has helped him get through a clinical depression diagnosis in the 1990s and a divorce two decades ago.
“I love the game so much,” says Bevell, who lives in Searcy with his second wife, Laura, “and I appreciate it so much that I have a wonderful place to play.”
Through golf, Bevell has also had the pleasure of watching his son, Josh, a PGA professional in Nashville, play in the 2024 PGA Championship at Valhalla. There are plenty of notes on playing with Josh, including when his son shot 75 at Quail Ridge in Memphis as a 10th grader to beat dad for the first time, but the majority of these transcripts involve his rivalry with Russ, which didn’t officially start until Aug. 27, 2009—a year after the two first played together in the River Oaks club championship.
“We could tell pretty quickly how competitive we both were and that just worked out really well,” Fullerton says. “I sort of suggested the cup and, man, he was for it all the way.”
To win the Coaches Cup, someone has to earn six points, with a point being awarded for the best nine-hole score, so it takes a few rounds for the prize to be earned. These guys can really play, especially for their age. In a match on July 13, 2012, Fullerton shot 69—and lost by four shots as Bevell posted a career-best 65. Bevell has broken his age 148 times so far, and both have maintained sub-4 handicap indexes for decades, not that handicaps are ever involved in their matches.
“Oh, we always play straight up,” Bevell says. “Giving someone shots would be an embarrassment. We couldn’t do that.”
There are other impressive numbers. They’ve seen each other make a combined five holes-in-one, and they have 28 senior and super-senior club championships between them at River Oaks, where the road to victory often comes down to another one of their many matches. “Once he got to 70, he didn’t have me to compete with,” Bevell notes, “so some of his super-senior titles are kinda lame.”
Behind all the jabs is a strong bond forged through a love of the game. Make no mistake, this is a golf friendship. Bevell and Fullerton often tee off as a twosome early, play quickly and go home. They don’t linger for drinks in the grill room after, and they’ve never gone on a golf trip together, not counting a handful of rounds at local courses other than River Oaks. They both remember certain matches, like the time Bevell spotted Fullerton putting the headcover on his driver, thinking the match was over when he was 2 up with two holes to play. “He won the last two holes, then beat me on an extra hole,” Fullerton recalls. “He’ll never let me forget it.”
For No. 500, Bevell got them a special cake. For No. 900, it was an engraved key chain. But the real reward is the Coaches Cup, which goes home with the winner and comes with bragging rights that even their families relish.
“Once, I was sitting out there watching people go down the golf course, and David happened to be out there,” says Fullerton, who lives off the 17th hole at River Oaks with his wife, Paulette. “I guess he was just practicing a little bit, and I figured when he saw me, he would drive up there, and he did. When I saw him coming, I got the cup out, and I was looking down like I didn’t see him. I was shining the cup, and then I looked up and was like, ‘Oh, hey, didn’t see you there.’ ”
For the record, Bevell holds an all-time edge in the Coaches Cup, although he wished for the lifetime tally—which he totaled only when I asked him to dig through his notes—to remain confidential. Both are well aware that in simply finding the perfect playing partner—and opponent—they’ve already won plenty, no matter who currently has possession of that old trophy.
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
