easyjay39402

I learned to play golf as a boy in the 1950s. We were a somewhat poor family, so I started caddying at a local golf club which, as it turned out, had a benign attitude towards the caddy shack. The Assistant Pro was the caddy master and he gave us lessons for free, even played with us on the course in the summer before the course opened. When Members purchased new clubs, they donated their old ones to the caddy shack. This was before golf carts, so everyone walked and we got plenty of loops, usually two per day on the weekends. Immersed in the game like that, I developed pretty quickly, got a hole-in-one, achieved the lowest scores that I would ever card in golf and played in two state amateur championships while in high school.  But I lacked the financial resources to continue in the game, only coming back to it in my mid 50s. The Assistant Pro - Pete Brown -  went on to be the first African American to win on the PGA Tour. Unfortunately, his career was interrupted, if I remember correctly, by a bout of polio, which was a common disease back then.  I can still remember the sound of club on ball when he hit a 3 iron on those dewy summer mornings ...