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The Golf Hustlers
Every fall, after the clubs up north close, the golf hustlers head south to get ready for the Yankee tourists. The hustler is usually a very good golfer, but not good enough to make it on the big tours. They are golf, but not work oriented. They will head south dressed in long sleeve shirts, broad brimmed hats and gloves on both hands to avoid getting a tan. They will practice playing on the sandy conditions in Florida and when those unsuspecting “white-faced Yankees” arrive in December, they will be waiting. What happened to me had a little different twist.
In the late 40’s I was pro-manager of the Panama Country Club in Lynn Haven, Florida. A cold front had moved through and it was cold enough for me to be wearing a sweater and windbreaker. I noticed a man getting out of his car, opening the trunk to get his set of clubs. All this man was wearing a fish-net shirt and shorts. He had long white hair and matching beard. He could have walked into Macy’s in New York and been hired as their Santa Claus.
He told us that he was from Colorado and that was why this weather was warm for him. He was heading for south Florida to meet some of his friends. He had not played much and knew they were waiting for him, so he wanted to take some lessons on the way in order to be ready for them. He wanted a lesson, followed by a playing lesson. I signed him up for a little later in the day. My locker room man asked me if I knew that gentleman, and I told him I did not. He said “II think he came through here some years ago and hustled the pro who was here at that time, and that man is a pro.”
Armed with this information, we headed out to the practice tee for his lesson. I asked him to show me his hands. He held both of them out with the backs up, and I said I wanted to see the palms. He turned over only the right hand. Then I told him I was more interested in seeing the left hand. He knew I had him then. He grinned and turned it over. You could not have driven a nail through the calluses on that hand. I asked him how much was that playing lesson going to cost me, he replied, ”Not too much.”
He had planned on looking like an impossible hacker in the lesson segment then would want to get up some bets in the playing lesson. I would give him a handicap of holes or strokes when the situation was right, he would hit a “lucky”. There would have been an amazing number of “lucky shots”- enough to beat my butt.
Incidentally, he was a PGA pro, and his friends in Florida were there gathering for the annual PGA Senior Championship. He finished second.
We became friends over the years, and he stayed over with us on a couple of occasions, once here in Montgomery. He claimed he was just going to have fun with me and would not have taken my money. I have a little problem believing that.
He was one of Babe Didrickson’s instructors, and around 1950 we played together in a practice round in Gulfport, Mississippi. In our foursome, was George Zaharias, Babe’s husband. He was a professional wrestler know as “The Crying Greek from Cripple Creek”. The Hustlers name was Bill Jelliffe, and the last time I saw him was a the PGA merchandise show in Orlando in the 70’. He was real old then, but still wearing his trade mark fish net shirt.