Summer ’65 - My first golf outing

Summer ’65 – Johnny Parker’s dad takes Johnny and I to Ross Rogers.  We arrive before sunrise. We experience a club house and tee box for the first time in our lives.  We were in heaven.  Do you know why we arrived before sunrise… because in his golfing episodes, that’s the time Dick Van Dyke told Mary Tyler Moore that he must arrive to beat the crowd. Those were the days before reservations. When we drove up to the club house I remember it looking like an old residence.  I don't know who Ross Rogers was, but that was perhaps his house that they renovated. The floors were squeaky, small multi-roomed. Some time later, I remember them adding a break area, where you could buy refreshments. How bizarre was that! I think the current club house is two versions away from that one. Anyway we walked around the club house. I can still remember the unique smell of all those newly tanned ‘natural’ leather bags and those leather winged flapped Johnston & Murphy’s.  We picked through the merchandise wondering why they sold all the gloves.  The spiked shoes made no sense. Those metal shafts were way cool, mine were wood.  I’d gotten them as pay for mowing a ladies lawn, whose husband had passed away.  She was old, and I think the clubs were older.  I remember seeing my first Titleist and I asked the clerk how much they were.  I think he said they were $15 a sleeve.  I had no idea what a sleeve was. $15 was absurd! That was almost a monthly car payment. 

Remember when you reached in your bag and chose the ball with the least cuts on it. Back in those days, only the greens were regularly watered.  Some fairways (mostly 9 and 18) had portable sprinklers with long hoses.  Reaching a buffalo grass fairway was common. Today, when I tee off on #1, I remember those same trees and how they looked back then.

Of course, outings like the above were way better than Gene Howe park where Johnny and I used trees as flag poles. Johnny, Randy Denny, Marty and me played fairly often.  I think Charlie and Teddy joined us occasionally. We’d play when we could accumulate enough paper route money.  Marty was very athletic back then, but you could tell that golf wasn’t really his game.  One day I was standing near Randy in a tree lined rough.  He wacked his ball, which immediately hit a tree, it careened back towards me and hit me right above the vitals before I could move.

My golfing hero back then was Tony Lema.  I’ve probably read 5 entire books in my life, the first one was one written by him called “Golfers' Gold: An Inside View of the Pro Tour”.  The part I remember most from this book is his ‘clock work putting swing’, which I still try to emulate.  I read the book, all fired up, about 2 weeks later he was killed in a plane crash. Bummer. I also liked Billy Casper, then of course Jack Nicolos and Johnny Miller came along. 

OK, this is the last one. Fast forward to high school. I was a first day Junior entering Mr Burson's geometry class.  I took my seat and looked around the room noticing pictures of golfers and golf teams on the wall.  I thought that rather odd and couldn't quickly figure it out. He takes role and calls out 'Lightfoot'.  I had my letter jacket on, and he looks at me and says 'do you play football?', I said 'Yes Sir'.  I swear he snickered, but then continued to take role. At the end of his role call, I bewilderingly asked him 'are you the golf coach?', he said 'yes sir'.  I was floored. Until that moment I never knew PD had a golf team, and I was in a class taught by their coach. I brain numbed over a lot of things during my PD days, but missing the fact that PD had a golf team ranked right up there. From then on, numerous times when I was out on the field being beat up during football practice, I'd say to myself, man I could be playing golf right now.   

I could go on, but better wrap it up.  Anybody else got a golfing story?