Memoirs of a Golfer

For us, the dinner was not just about a single event, the 1996 MG. Rather it was about our history of being successful in many of the Member Guests and in other tournaments at ACC as well. There are no future Member Guests in which we could participate. So in that sense, the dinner was a last hurrah. John and I participated in other guest tournaments at ACC such as the Men’s Golf Association’s Invitational Tournaments. We won most of those events. It is wonderful to succeed but to do so with a lifelong friend is particularly special. I showed John how to play golf, which undoubtedly obstructed his progress in learning the game. In our senior year at Clay High School (Oregon, OH) John was the only unanimous choice for first team on the all-conference basketball team and was also selected on the Baseball Ohio All-State first team. As a senior, I organized Clay’s first golf team which included my good friend, Chuck. Tom and Sara were married in 1961; John and Marilyn were married in 1962. Both John and I were Best Men in each other’s wedding. Unfortunately, Marilyn died in February, 1971 from cancer leaving John with two children ages 6 and 4. He married Ruth in June 1975 and they were married nearly 50 years before she passed away in March, 2025. John and I both retired around 2000 which enabled us to take golfing vacation trips to places where the Lazurs and Cooneys could enjoy the local environs. Our travels, which included at least one round of golf, were to Banff (Canada), Pebble Beach, Myrtle Beach, Hilton Head Island, the World Golf Hall of Fame in St. Augustine, FL (since moved to Pinehurst, NC), and Scotland/England. They were all great times. One of John’s hobbies is to make golf clubs. He made an extra-long driver for me that I used when long drivers were in vogue but later outlawed by the PGA and USGA. He once made himself a set of clubs in which the clubs were all the same length. (The professional golfer Bryson DeChambeau is quite successful using such clubs.) The theory, as I understand it, is that such clubs enable a golfer to use the same swing for all clubs. When in Myrtle Beach, he experimented with his single length clubs but, as I recall, the experiment lasted for only a single round. On another trip to Myrtle Beach, we played several different courses and concluded that our driving distances were virtually the same length. John had purchased a Golf Speed Measuring Device so we could measure the speed of our swings. John’s speed with a driver was generally 85-89. My swing speed was slower, 76-81. This raised the question why with his faster swing speed were his drives not longer than mine? The device answered the question. On my test drives I almost always hit the ball in the “sweet spot” of the driver which maximized whatever distance I was entitled to. But John’s test drives were not on the “sweet spot”—he had a lot of variance on where the club contacted the ball. This suggested that he had a loss of potential distance with his driver. We always enjoyed such conversations and experiments. I always thought John was a better ball striker than me but the consistency of my short game generally allowed me to score better. Such was life together as friends and golfers. I played various rounds that summer of 2024 at age 86. Sometimes I played very well and even broke 80 once but I was usually between 81 and 88. I sometimes skipped a hole or two and recorded bogeys on those holes. (Fatigue was a factor.) On August 27, 2024 I played my usual round from the green tees. As best I could determine, my tee shots averaged about 150 yards. But my short game was again a blessing as I had no double bogeys and shot 79, playing all 18 holes. My friend and golfing partner, Red Petrovs signed the card. On that day, I shot my age for the 231st time, the first being April 29, 2011 when I shot 72 at age 72. I am very proud of that mark, shooting my age for more than 200 times. It demonstrated consistency which was a key point to my playing golf. Yes, I moved up to shorter tees through my elder years to compensate for my continuing loss of driving distance. As I said before, I don’t buy the notion that a player should play tees in which some holes are not reachable given his/her driving distance. Not many players can claim such a mark of shooting their age more than 200 times. It was my last hurrah for shooting my age. Later that fall, I planned to play 16 or 17 holes but after 13 holes I was exhausted and felt very weak. I had to stop playing and went home. Sara was very upset when she saw my condition. She made me promise that I would not attempt to play 18 holes again. So I became a 9-hole golfer and a range player. This restriction did not diminish my love for the game. At the range my swings were usually experiments, searching for an improved swing. When I played 9 holes, particularly when I played by myself, I would often stop and view the beauty of the hole I was playing and recall all those wonderful times I had spent playing this and other courses throughout the country. It brought me comfort and joy. I realized how fortunate I was to play golf in my middle eighties.