Golf Memorabilia
A collection of stuff that over the years ended up in my golf bags. And, rediscovered when I picked the game back up in the Summer of 2014. All items are, at least, 25 years old and some are pushing 50 plus; each connected to memories of places and rounds played so many years ago.
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What’s the Yardage
Historians have debated the origin of the game for a long time. Was it the Dutch playing a game with a stick and leather ball which the winner was whoever hit the ball with the fewest strokes into a target several hundred yards away? Or, was it the documented Scottish game gowf played since the 1400s? Whatever the case, I am willing to wager, it was only minutes after the first club was swung, the thought “How far?” followed. Knowing the distance has always been a key part of the game. Years ago, long before the GPS and laser rangefinders, the main way to know how far was stakes on…
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First Golf Ball without a Handicap
The first golf ball without a handicap is what Spalding claimed on the sleeve box when they introduced the Tour Edition ball. According to an NY Times article published in February 1986, ” Spalding, has spent the last five years and $5 million producing a cover material it calls Zinthane. It put it on a new ball, the Tour Edition, aimed at better players. It is being priced at $32 a dozen, highest on the market (balls usually sell for between $9.95 a dozen and $28), but Spalding says the ball outperforms balata while resisting cutting.” Here were the main “talking points” of the value proposition for buying the highest…
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The Ben Hogan brand
My introduction to the name “Ben Hogan” came by the way of someone telling me I should get the book Five Lessons. At the time, I was fairly new to golf, a couple of years at the most, and most of my golfing experience had been on par 3s and short executive golf courses. However, by the early 70s, I had became a big fan of the man for what he had overcame as much as what he had accomplished in golf. And, by the early 80s, had Hogan clubs throughout my bag, so it was only natural for me to start playing the Hogan ball and wearing a Hogan…
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Scorecard Collection
Although my introduction to golf was in the spring of 1964, it was not until being station in England in the late 60s did I developed an appreciation for how the “grand old game” is played. Up until then, my “golf swing” had derived from the hand and eye coordination developed as a switch hitting baseball player and reading a couple of Hogan’s books including the classic Five Lessons. “How hard can it be, the ball is sitting still, RIGHT?”, had always been the mindset. After a couple of rounds on a course outside Bury St. Edmunds, I had the answer! There is a big difference in “playing golf” and…
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Bag Tags
I truly don’t remember when I started buying bag tags, sometime around 71 or 72, but I do remember why. As I have stated in other post, at that time I was taking lessons under L B Floyd, and became a disciple of “not falling in love with one course but developing a traveling game that would hold up on any track”. So, as it was, a group of us would set out on a “Pro from Dover” (MASH fans) road trip with the intention of playing “X” number of course in “X” number of days. Therefore, early on, we decided to purchase bag tags the first time we visited…
