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Comraderie In Golf
At a PGA meeting a few years ago, a young professional, referring to me, said, "Isn't it great that we have a professional who has been through the evolution of the golf game"? To which some wiseacre pro made the remark, " Hell, Larsen has been through evolution."
It is not quite that bad, but I was raised in the country in the state of Connecticut during the "depression" years. From grade 1 through grade 7 I went to a little one-room schoolhouse out in the woods. The enrolment for the entire 8 grades rarely ran over 16 students. We had one teacher to teach the entire 8 grades. Sling shots in the back pocket were self imposed mandatory dress for the boys. We did not have indoor plumbing or electricity. Lunch was taken with our little brown bag sandwiches that were consumed while perched up in a tree. After lunch we played in the brook behind the school until the teacher rang the bell. When my dog would follow me to school, he would sleep under my desk. My first salaried job was to pump the organ in the Congregational Church for 5.00 a year.
The word sex was only used to identify male or female. Sex education was not taught, but it was a well known fact back in those days that if you didn't watch it you were going to get involved in a much earlier wedding than you had planned. (Commonly known as a "shotgun wedding.") There were some instances when the parents of the likes of Lucy Belle would send her out to visit her Aunt Mary out in California for a year. This was a very effective method to help keep you on the straight and narrow.
Up to this point you have probably pictured me as an All American boy, and one who could have been a subject for a Norman Rockwell painting. Well I was, until I met Lou Broward.
Lou was from Jacksonville, Florida and had only taken up the game of golf in 1939. In 1942, as an amateur, Lou won the Florida State Open. He was drafted shortly thereafter, and was sent to Tyndall Field. We met for the first time in an exhibition match we played in Marianna, Florida. Lou had a three-quarter backswing and did not know the meaning of the word rough, and when he arrived on those old common Bermuda greens he putted like he was putting in a barrel.
Lou and I became great friends and played together quite often as partners. I would hit it all over the place, but would get my share of birdies, while Lou did not know what a bogey was, so we made a good team. Lou had 3 vices, drinking, gambling, and women. (Not necessarily in that order.) I tried for 4 years to show him the advantages of clean living, and he spent that same 4 years trying to teach me the advantages of the wages of sin. We did compromise, and while I did not pick up many of his bad habits, I had gotten over the fear of a Lucy Belle, as she was older now, and her parents had probably given up on her anyway.
I don't know how the Army Air Corps, (as it was known as at that time) ever got Lou Broward, but as Lou once told his Commanding Officer, after he had been promoted from Private to PFC, (Base pay went from 50.00 a month to 54.00) "Captain, don’t you think that this is a waste of government money?" They assigned him to go out and catch mosquitoes to test for malaria. Lou had a jeep checked out to him, and one day, to avoid boredom, he took the jeep down on the beach area and started driving in and out with the waves. The waves crossed him up and he ended up stalled in the Gulf. The tide was coming in and soon the Jeep disappeared. He had carved out an arrow in the sand pointing to the location of the Jeep, so when help arrived they knew about where it was located. When confronted by the Captain, Lou said, "Captain, I was chasing the biggest damn mosquito you have ever seen.".
One Saturday afternoon I met Lou in downtown Panama City. He told me there was a good tournament being held in Tallahassee the next day. As usual, we did not have much money between us. He suggested that we could hitch hike to Tallahassee, and that he had a friend their by the name of Jimmy Lee. Jimmy, at that time was State Amateur champion, and he surely would lend us a set of clubs. We both wanted to play, but we only had enough money for one, so we decided to wait until we got there and then flip a coin to see who would play and who would caddie. We arrived about eleven that night and ended up by sleeping on the porch of an old abandoned house.
He did know Jimmy Lee, and we did get a set of clubs, but he had conned me. It was an amateur tournament and I was a pro. I caddied, and he won the tournament.
Lou and I played in the Pensacola Open, while we were still in the service. We stayed at the old San Carlos Hotel. I had a snappy opening 75, and Lou a 76. I went to bed early to get rest so I could make my move the next day. Lou went out on the town looking for a crap game. He woke me up at 5 in the morning saying, "I'm a bum, I'm a bum." I said, " I know you are a bum, so go to sleep." He then said, "I lost all of my money, I lost my watch, and I sold your golf clubs and lost that money." This got my attention. I never did see my clubs again and never had a chance to make my move.
At another time we went to Nashville, Tenn. to play in the Nashville Invitational. At this stage of the game my thinking process was getting as bad as his, because after we paid our entry fee we only had 14.00 between us. With the possibility of 5 days of golf, we were looking at the expenses of eating, hotel room, caddie fees, and miscellaneous expenses, and all of that with 14 bucks.
Before I met Lou, a situation like this would have given me a heart attack. Lou said, "Give me your money and I know there is a "floating" crap game going at the Hermitage Hotel. You go out and see if you can find somebody to put us up for the week." He won 500.00 in the crap game, but we slept at the YMCA. I don't remember much about the tournament, except I did make enough money in the Pro-Am to help carry us through.
The last time I saw Lou was when we passed on parallel fairways at a tournament in Florida. I was married and settled down then, and was the Pro at the Panama C. C. We hugged each other, said a few words, waved and went on our separate ways. I turned to look back at him, and he had also turned to look back at me. We waved once more, and like me, was probably momentarily reflecting on those good old crazy days we spent together. The "Wages of Sin" caught up with him quite a few years ago, but I will always remember him and the bond that the game of golf created between us. (Along with that other stuff.)
©2004 Fred Larsen All rights Reserved