Last time you talked about ice skating.
Right. And hot chocolate. Today I’d like to talk about a different sport.
Okay.
That skating rink was where my family rented. But when I was age 11 my parents bought a house in a different part of town. And when we moved in I found we were next to a golf course.
I knew nothing about the sport at the time, but I learned.
How?
Well, for starters — remember how I said that the war created a shortage of rubber? That meant there was a shortage of golf balls.
Okay.
So the golfers definitely didn’t want to lose any. Some would even go into water to retrieve any they saw.
And, if there was a source of used balls, they were interested in buying even them.
Well, it so happened our house was on the right side of the 6th fairway, separated from it by a chain-link fence.
And we were far enough from the tee that, if the average golfer sliced the ball …
… it could land in our yard.
I picked them up and collected quite a few.
Those that were badly cut wouldn’t be much good. But, the ones that were just dirty and not cut, I would wash and clean with a household product.
And would you believe? After all these years, when I get a whiff of that cleanser, it brings back memories of those days.
Smells can do that. What did you do next?
I’d go to the back of the yard with a collection of balls, all cleaned up. And I’d call to the golfers passing by. “Want to buy some balls, mister?” Or “miss,” depending. They’d either shake me off or come over to see what I had.
I told them I had two prices. For name brands like Spalding and Wilson in good condition I’d ask for 50 cents. Off brands or slightly scuffed name brands went for a quarter.
And what happened?
I’d tell them what I had and how much. And, depending on what they wanted, I’d pass one or two through that chain-link fence.
They’d look them over and either buy or pass them back.
They didn’t just walk off with them?
No, that was the neat part of it. In all the years I did that, not one golfer ever stole a ball. Surprising, don’t you think?
Really.
Well, for one thing, it was a private club. A limited membership. Everybody knew everybody else. Not like a public golf course. But, still, I was impressed.
So that was your introduction to golf.
It was the start. One of my father’s friends learned of our situation and gave me a few old golf clubs. And I mean old. I guess he was trying to unload.
They had wooden shafts. The driver had a chip out of the club face. One was labeled a “mashie-niblick.” That was old-fashioned terminology even back in the 1940s. It was comparable to the 7-iron.
But it got me interested in swinging a club. Now — I am basically a left-hander. I write that way. I throw that way. But with a baseball bat I could switch-hit. So if the clubs had been for a left-hander I probably would have taught myself to play that way. But they were right-handed clubs, so that’s how I learned to golf.
So you played?
Not yet. First I studied other golfers. When I got to be a little older, I took up caddying on that golf course. The members didn’t use carts or carry their own bags. They used caddies, and I became one of them.
I got to know the course better than some of the members, so I could advise them.
Advise them how?
Well, I might say something like “You can’t see it from here, but there’s a sand trap just over the hill on the left, so keep your ball to the middle or to the right.”
And you learned golf that way?
Pretty much. The course closed on Mondays. The members didn’t play, but caddies were allowed.. So I could go out on the course and practice those days. And eventually I had enough money to buy a real, matched set of golf clubs.
Then I got serious. I practiced and I began to read. You want to know what I thought was the best book on the subject?
What?
Ben Hogan’s Power Golf. Here’s a photo of my copy. I still have it.
It’s a 187-page paperback put out by Pocket Books in 1948. The pages are all yellow, and the back cover is missing, but I still have it.
And do you want to know what it cost back them? Can you read the price in the upper-left corner? It cost me the grand total of 25 cents. Best bargain I ever got in a book. I’ve read other books on golf by other authors, but I like Hogan’s the best. Yellow pages and all.