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A New Year
Another year gone, and we are all still on the right side of the grass. Every year promises to be exciting and challenging, but I think this coming year is going to be exceptionally so. They have informed us that this is the worst time since the great depression. I happened to be raised up during those days, but times and attitudes of people have changed \considerably since.
From the age of 12 my mind spent more time thinking about golf than school work. If I had studied Economics in those days, there would be no relationship to Economics today. In the “Great Depression” my father’s economic advice was--”If you can’t pay cash for it, you can’t afford to have it.” My parent’s lived their whole lives with that philosophy. Try that today.
The game of golf has traveled the same highway as our daily living expenses. When I arrived here as Pro-Manager of the Maxwell Golf Course, the dues at most of the clubs in Montgomery were in the 15.00 a month range. When I took over the old Elsmeade Golf Club, which was Public, the Greens fees were only 1.00 for all day, and pull carts were 50 cents, Our government was working with billions at that time, but now it is Trillions. The clubs are the same in relationship.
There is nothing good about any war, but there were 3 things that made me appreciate the 4 years I spent in the Army Air Corps in WWII.
It kept me from marrying a young lady who hated golf and would have made my life miserable. Two, I came out of it broke, and had to go to work in the golf business, instead of just wanting to play. Three, TV were not around to set up their cameras in advance to film a planned attack, thus allowing us to win that war.
I was good enough to qualify to play in some events during the Hogan, Snead and Nelson years, which helped make working more financially rewarding.
I guess as we get older we have a lot of recurring dreams, the characters may change, but the situations are primarily the same. I had one the other night, and the situation was what actually happened.
I was playing in a tour event and traveling with an old Army buddy, who was a fine golfer. He had three outstanding vices, Women, whisky, and gambling. (Not necessarily in that order.)
I was serious about my game and was in bed early to try to figure out how I could have improved on the 75 I shot that day. He went out and found a crap game and proceeded to lose all of his money and watch. Then he then sold my golf clubs and lost that money. I will not repeat the ensuing conversation we had, but I had to withdraw because I did not have any clubs. Despite this, other great times we had together helped heal the wounds and we remained great friends. He left this world many years ago. I don’t know which one of the vices did him in, or possibly a combination of all three.