Golf Talk With Greg Holman – #60

I’ve given you many tips that I have picked up over the last 55 years and I hope you will find at least one of them helpful. We talked about everything from golf exercises to the fundamentals of the swing to practice techniques on the range, the course and the putting green and we’ve covered course management an psychology.

For my first blog of 2022 I thought I would continue a sort of countdown. Ten quick stories that I have either heard secondhand or have experienced first hand. Strange that I remember my first par and my first eagle but I cannot recall my first birdie. One of the oddest shots I ever hit was on the 9th hole of my home course, the S&T Golf Course in Rolla. 360-yard par 4 uphill through a shoot of trees. I sprayed my drive to the right as per usual when I was 13. My second shot did not get out of the trees. I punched my third shot to within about 60 yards of the green. Did I mention the wind was howling in my face at least 30mph? I took out a full 9 iron and flew it into the cup for par.

These stories are all true. The second and third stories are from Lebanon, MO Country Club circa 1971.

I was hired to caddie for my golf teacher and his bag was bigger than me, but I was pretty strong for a little kid so I gave it the old junior high try. Halfway through the first hole my teacher’s partner wanted to know if I would double caddie… carry one bag on each shoulder. I said, “Sure,” (because that meant double the money.) Have you seen the move, “The Greatest Game Ever Played?” I was that caddie. The clubs were carrying me around. They realize that wouldn’t work and I only had to complete the round with one bag on my shoulder.

The other story involved my teacher again over his 10-year old son, who would become my roommate at Mizzou eight years later. My instructor was allowing his young son to drive a cart. The greenskeeper noticed that and drove from the clubhouse out to the 9th tee where we were, to confront Ken. I’ll go ahead and use his name because he is deceased. There was a brief shouting match as Ken pleaded his case that his son has been driving golf carts since he was old enough to walk. The greenskeeper said they had rules and you had to be 16 to operate a golf cart on their course. I thought there was going to be a fight, but Ken finally gave in and drove the cart himself. So much for golf being a gentlemen’s game.

My 4th story comes from the Ken Lanning Junior Golf Tournament. I believe it was year two for me so I would’ve been 15 years old. They staged a long drive contest that year and a hole in one contest before the tournament. No one could hit the ball in the fairway due to the dry conditions.

The fairway sloped right to left, but the right-hand rough sloped to the right, so no winner was declared but I won the closest to the hole contest on a makeshift 100 yard hole. We hit across that first fairway to a flag with a coffee can that was sunk into the ground in the middle of the third fairway. A chalk outline marked the “green.” It was actually a blind shot too so there was a lot of luck involved. On my first shot I bounced my wedge shot into the hole. That won the contest needless to say.

I’ll have five more stories next week. Hope you got a little laugh out of these. And remember if we have any nice weather before I talk to you next week, hit ’em straight!