My Golf Stories

I’m going to start off by saying that I have a knack for beginner’s luck. The first time I used a golf club is a good example.

I was about 7 or 8 years old and was living in Pensacola, Florida. I can’t remember if this was before or after losing my left pinky (Read Pinkies Are Expensive to learn how). We were visiting my step mother’s parents. Her dad liked to collect old cars and had several of the first American cars in show quality. They also had a golf course behind their house with a large grassy out-of-bounds area just beyond their fence.

My dad had bought a new 7-iron and was practicing, hitting balls into the long grass. However, he was struggling to keep them flying straight and was both hooking and fading them. It was then that they decided that I should try, and after showing me how to properly hold the club with thumbs straight, I prepared to hit my first golf ball.

I should mention that I do have excellent eye-hand coordination, and I had some experience playing baseball. To everyone’s astonishment, including mine, my first ball went straighter and farther than any of my dad’s. I especially remember my step mother’s father, whose name escapes me, really being excited about my beginner’s luck. He urged me to hit a few more and encouraged my dad to pursue getting me involved in golf.

I also remember that my father was a bit frustrated with how I was doing better. I was just trying to hit the ball and not miss. I’m not sure if the next part came before or after we played a game of golf, but I’m mentioning it now as it relates to this part of the story.

My dad had bought this special 5-iron that had an elbow joint a third of the way up the club. It was meant to help you fix your swing as it would bend if you're doing it wrong; supposedly. We went out into our front yard and I watched my dad struggle to keep it from bending, but after several swings he managed to get a few good swings.

After explaining about it to me, he allowed me to take some swings. I knew about the concept of allowing the weight of the head of your tool to do the work, like with a sledgehammer. With my first swing, the club stayed straight and my dad was audibly perplexed, immediately telling me that he couldn’t understand why it didn’t bend due to my unorthodox swing. Yes, my dad wasn’t great at golf, but he did know a lot about it, or at least what was known then.

I don’t know if you’d call that beginner’s luck since I knew a bit of the curve so to speak. In any case, my dad wouldn’t pursue getting me involved in organized golf, but we did play a game together once. I’m guessing I didn’t do that well as to why we never did it again. It was fun for me. We played at a Naval course, but I can’t remember if it was when we were in Pensacola or in Naples.

There’s only a couple of moments that really stand out in my memory. The first was when we were on a par 5, and my tee shot didn’t go very far. I wanted the ball to go really far again, and against my dad’s advice, I grabbed the 1-wood. It was an actual wooden club, too.

I remember this shot well because of how amazed my dad was about it. I hit it well and it flew no more than three feet off of the ground, looking like a hoverball until it hit the hill further ahead. My father said that he had never seen anything like that, and I haven’t since; not that I played much later on.

There is one other significant moment that didn’t involve us. We had caught up to four older men at a par 3 hole where the tee is high above the hole that is barely eighty yards away. The ravine was cemented and had the U.S. Navy logo on it. I remember seeing it from the road as we drove to the entrance of the course.

The four gentlemen were just starting the hole. I remember my dad telling me that they were regulars on the course. My jaw dropped each time one of them hit the ball as all four of them either dunked in and out of the hole, or landed within six inches from it and died on the spot.

Again, I’ve never seen anything like it since. Have you?

All in all, those are my most memorable moments with golf. I do enjoy it, but it’s an expensive sport, plus the last time that I went to a driving range, I was shanking balls left and right. Something about my swing has changed.

Anyhole, I hope you enjoyed those stories. It was fun remembering them again.

Thank you so much for reading. I hope you have a wonderful day….[[|:-)