A Foray Into Golf

A Foray Into Golf

Me hitting my 5-iron

I first played golf with my father when I was 13 or 14 years old. I am left handed but the only clubs available were my father's and he was right handed so I learned to play right handed and played with his We went to a course called “Hill and Tree”. My memory of playing the course is there were some small bumps that maybe a 3 year old might call hills and hardly any trees at all. It was a rather short course making it good for hackers and beginners and the course was populated with exactly those types of golfers. The holes were close together with the fairways right next to each. That combination of bad golfers and holes on top of each other resulted in golf balls flying every which way. You had to continuously be watching for balls flying your way from other fairways. As a result my father dubbed the course “Hit and Duck”. We felt lucky to escape unscathed and, not wanting to press our luck, we resolved to not play there again.

In 8^th grade I became friends with Eddie. Eddie was into golf. His father was a semi-pro golfer. I think he may have actually spent more time at the golf course hustling than actually playing in tournaments. Anyway Eddie and I started playing golf together. My Dad bought me a set of clubs. I had a wicked slice and soon learned that I was best served by only using irons off the fairway. I eventually bought a 4 wood to use off the tee in an attempt to minimize my impressive slice. On the plus side, I was a good putter. I had a lot of confidence and I believed I could make every putt. I am really not one to brag but I did make a lot of them. I remember one time when I was playing with Eddie at Dix Hills Golf course. One of my neighbors was playing in the group behind us. We were at a par 3 hole and I hit my ball flag high onto the green but on the opposite side of the green from where the flag was.. My neighbor saw it and said “Good shot. Too bad the flag is on the other side.” I remember saying “That's OK. It's a pretty straight putt and I've made that putt before.” And sure enough, I made the putt.

I spent a couple of summers caddying at a couple of local golf/country clubs. I was not that big and also thin. Even though I could carry two bags, which was what everyone wanted to do because then you got paid double, I didn't look like it. As a result I was usually sent out in groups where they needed someone to carry just one bag. I was attentive but I was not any good providing tips or information. I could read the greens OK, but I had no idea how to club someone. Once off the tee I personally used a 5-iron for every shot until I was within 100 yards of the green. So when asked what to use on a given shot the only answer I had was “5-iron”.

My Dad on the Tee - Long Island

After high school I pretty much quit playing golf, only playing a couple of times with my Dad over the next 15 years. In 1982 I started playing again. My girlfriend at the time, Karen, played a little golf so we started playing together. We both worked at Tymshare and one of the guys I worked with there organized a company golf league. I am going to call him Jim but I'm not sure I am remembering his name right. Karen and I both joined. Jim was a scratch golfer. He had played in college and did well. However he did not have the option to turn pro as he had a bum leg and that limited how much he could walk and walking a pro-tour course 4 times in four days was not something he'd regularly be able to do. His league was a handicap league and handicaps were kept for all those who participated. League handicaps were based solely on scores in league play. The first three rounds you played in the league you played with no handicap but all rounds after that you were assigned a handicap based on all your previous scores in the league. Jim kept all the handicaps. After each round Jim would post the scores from low to high (with the handicap applied) and each person was awarded points based on where they placed. For example: If 20 people played, the person who came in first got 20 points, the second 19 and so forth with the last place person getting 1. The person who accumulated the most points at the end of the season was declared the league champion.

I had only one golf club as I had kept that putter from when I played golf when I was a teenager. The first week or two I used Karen's clubs but I really needed clubs of my own. I did not want to just buy some cheap department store clubs but I also did not want to spend a lot of money. Buying a full set of nice golf clubs was way more than I was willing to spend. After doing a little research I found that Power Built made quality golf clubs and sold individual clubs, meaning, I would not have to buy a complete set. I was not very good at hitting woods so I initially purchased just a 5, 7, and 9-iron along with a sand wedge. I played with just those along with my putter for a few weeks. After that I broke down and bought myself a new 4 wood. I eventually also purchased a 3-iron. I would play golf with only those 7 clubs for more than 10 years. I only used my 3-iron for hitting low punch shots out from under the trees as it seemed that most of my shots preferred to avoid landing in the fairway. A few years later when I started playing golf with my father-in-law, Bill, he would tell me that my best shot was hitting out from under the trees and it was true it was the shot I was the most consistent with. Of course that was the result of a lot of repetition.

Karen and I occasionally played on the weekends. For awhile we played about once a month. The first time we played together we went to a course in Cupertino called Deep Cliff. Deep Cliff was a short, picturesque 18 hole course with narrow fairways and lots of water. When we teed off we had 8 golf balls between us. By the time we finished the 11^th hole we were down to just one golf ball. We decided to continue on each playing every other shot. Karen decided that I should tee off. So I teed off the 12^th hole and of course hit my tee shot right into the water. Out of golf balls we had to walk off the course. In spite of that I liked Deep Cliff and I ended up playing that course a number of times but I don't think I ever played it without losing at least a couple of balls.

After that first experience at Deep Cliff we decided maybe we should try to find another course to play. Karen knew of a course in San Jose that was inexpensive and never crowded. The course was very flat without much trouble and with little water to speak of. It was marginally maintained and the fairways were dry and hard. By hard I mean on many holes when I miss hit a shot, hitting a hard grounder, my ball would go almost as far as it would have if I had hit a good shot. The best thing about the course other than maybe the price was that there was no dress code, and I mean really no dress code. Karen played it wearing a two piece bathing suit and I played it wearing just a pair of running shorts. And by that I mean I went shirtless and barefooted, although I did bring flip-flops in case I needed to go into some of the rougher areas. It was great! I loved playing barefooted.

Back to the Tymshare league. Because I had only played a few rounds of golf in the last 15 years when I joined the league, I was initially terrible but I kept improving. As a consequence my league handicap, once established, started out quite high. As I began playing more regularly I started getting better. The result was my handicap kept dropping but due to my early scores and my continuing to improve, my handicap did not reflect the level at which I was now playing. I was consistently shooting at or below my handicap and hence, I was placing near the top in each week's tournament. I was gathering lots of points and at the end of the season I had the most points and became the club champion. Sometime after the league ended Karen and I broke up. Shortly after that I left Tymshare and stopped playing golf again. I didn't pick it back up until I got together with Kris and met her father Bill. Bill was an avid golfer and I started playing with him and his friends. That's when I learned to love golf and became a “real” golfer, but like every golfer everywhere I never became the golfer I thought I could be...