By Brian Hoffman – Sports Editor
I used to play a little golf years ago. We had a group that played at Countryside every Wednesday afternoon after all our papers were out. That was well over 30 years ago and Countryside isn’t a golf course anymore. Driving down 581 I can’t even recognize where the greens were.
I was never a “good” golfer. My introduction to the game was when I was 10 years old and riding down the street on my bicycle. One of the neighbors up the street had put a one iron out for the trash and I noticed it sticking out of the can. I grabbed it for my own and I still have it, a “Kro-Flight” model made by Spaulding with a 1925 patent inscribed on the head.
We had a vacant field behind our house about the size of a football field, with back yards encircling the field. It’s full of houses now but when I was 10 it was wide open, and people in the area used to hit balls out there for practice. I had collected some smiley ones that were left in the field, so I had some golf balls before I had a club.
When I got home I decided to give that club a try. Our house was at about the 10 yard line of the field, if it had been marked, and I took a couple balls and went out behind our property to the edge of the field. I addressed the ball, like I’d seen on TV, reared back and swung as hard as I could. As luck would have it, I connected with a perfect shot and that ball screamed across the field and slammed against a house on the other side with a loud thud. I had no idea it could go that far from watching the neighbors practice chipping, and I ran into the house in case anyone came looking for me. They never did, and I don’t think I broke anything so no harm was done.
At that point I decided I might like to try this game, so I saved up my money for a nine iron and bought some whiffle ball golf balls to hit around the yard. My next club was a putter, and with the nine iron I could now play on the local par three course, similar to Brookside here in the valley.
I bought one club at a time until I had the whole set of irons. The irons were made by Kroydon, and according to Google that now makes them “vintage.” The odd numbered irons were Paul Harney models and the even numbers were Dave Hill autographed. I found out Harney played on the tour from 1955-73 and had six wins.
Again thanks to Google, Dave Hill was mostly known for his quick wit and biting sarcasm, and was sometimes referred to as “the Don Rickles of the golf tour”. He frequently led the tour in fines and was once suspended for two months after he deliberately broke his putter on national television, and I guess that was good enough to get him a sponsorship with Kroydon.
My woods were sponsored by someone much more famous in Jack Nicklaus, the all-time leader in major tournament wins. I had a driver and three and five woods that were “Jack Nicklaus Golden Bear” models, and they were as cool as can be. The wood was a mixed hue of gold and brown and on the striking surface there was a bear. They were made by Macgregor.
I played with these clubs in the late ‘60s at a nine hole course near our home. Then I moved on to Roanoke College and a home in Virginia, where I played with friends until it got to the point where I was just too busy to set aside four or five hours for golf.
When I got married in 1988 the clubs went into the storage building and had been there ever since. . . .until a about a month ago that is. With no games to cover and no pictures to take I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands, and the idea came to me that golf would not only kill some time, but would be a fun way to get in some exercise as well.
I fished the clubs out of the building and shined them up, with steel wool for the irons and soap and water for the woods. I still had balls and tees in the bag and my hand-cart was a little rusty, but it shined up pretty nice as well. I was ready for some golf.
My choice of course, of course, was the Municipal Course on Academy Street in Salem. It has dirt “greens” and the fairways don’t rival Augusta but it’s cheap and it’s a great spot for a duffer to hone his game.
I took two of my grandsons with me on a windy, but sunny, afternoon and we had a good time despite playing some of the worst golf you’ll ever see. I didn’t know 30 years of inactivity could hurt my game like it did, and my grandsons were beginners. One had never swung a regular club(putt putt doesn’t count) and the other hadn’t played since he participated in a youth clinic and was aggravated because he had to wear a collared shirt. At the time he pointed out that Tiger Woods didn’t wear a collared shot, and my obvious comeback was “you can wear whatever you want when you’re as good as Tiger Woods.”
Well, at the Salem course a collared shirt is not required, so we were okay. After we each hit it close to 10 times on the first hole we decided not to keep score. However, we got a little better as the day wore on, got some exercise and had a good time. And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?
The funny thing is, that first shot I hit with the one-iron when I was 10 years old was better than any shot I hit on my “comeback tour.” I just need to get on the range and hit a few buckets as the pandemic allows.
And, my experience gave me a new appreciation of how good some of these young golfers are that I take pictures of and write stories about. You never know, there might be another Paul Harney among them.
