I’ve been playing this game for almost 60 years. I first swung a golf club in 1957. Why that happened I really don’t remember.

 

The best I can recall is my friend Eddie Rickenbacker, nephew of THE EDDIE RICKENBACKER – World War II fighter pilot and Medal of Honor recipient, both got into golf at the same time. We lived in a little development in South San Francisco called Brentwood. Eddie lived around the corner from us and across from “the park.”

 

We became friends instantly the first time we met. The Park had a playground, basketball court, a grass field and best of all, it had THE GULLY. THE GULLY was an area behind the park and next to Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno. It was a gully as it had hills on both sides of a grass field. Above and bordering the gully were houses. But the gully itself was this marvelous grass field that seemed so huge. Somehow we both found golf, found some old clubs and some golf balls and we went back into the gully and started banging balls.

 

It’s so hard to remember back that far but it seems to me one of my uncles gave me some really, really old wood shafted clubs. You could tell they were hand-made. On them was stamping that read things like “NIBLICK”, “SPOON” and “MASHIE”. The grips were shiny, smooth, worn leather. Eddie and I took the first steps on our journey.

 

It didn’t take long for either of us to hit that magical first perfect shot. And there it was. The light got brighter. The bells rang loudly. The angels sung and we were hooked and I mean hooked. Shortly after that first shot my parents bought me a used set of real clubs and then very soon after and real set of new clubs. We went to one of the Big Box Stores back then and found what I thought was the most beautiful set of clubs I had ever seen. They were “Bobby Nichols” signature. The set was complete with irons and persimmon woods. It had white Golf Pride grips. (Sometimes I see a set on ebay and it’s very tempting to buy them.)

 

The love of the game grew rapidly and within another few months I had a book called “Ben Hogan’s Modern Fundamentals Of Golf.” I read that book ten times over. We had no video so the only way for me was to watch myself swing using our glass patio door reflection. I could follow the instruction; do the moves slowly and before too long my game really improved. Unfortunately, I’m sad to say, I was never great. As a junior golfer my game was just OK and in the local junior tournaments, you could say I was “part of the field” and not finishing in first place. Johnny Miller was in many of the tournaments and he was always the man to beat. Nobody did that. He was so good it was incredible.

 

Looking back, had we video and high speed, stop-action cameras, launch monitors, all the technology of today, things might have been different for everyone. So, enough about me. Simply know that I know exactly what you are going through as you learn about this game and the golf swing. If you’ve ever heard the phrase “been there, done that”, it applies. My recommendation is to never lose your passion for the game and to never lose sight of the fact that it is, after all, just a game. A big part of the fun is learning and trying to get better and … da, da, dah… that’s where I come in.