I’ve played since my father took me out when I was about ten.  During my teen years, I worked at what in those days were called “caddy camps,” summer programs organized with elite private golf clubs on Cape Cod, where boys from the greater Boston area would spend the summer, learning how to caddy properly, while caddying for members and paying room and board.

It was kind of a golf boy scout camp, organized in part to “build character” as one learned the great, old Scottish game.

I’ve never been a club guy; but I have friends who are and play a private course once in a while.  I play at least once a week (except when it snows) and generally arrive on the first tee and go off with whoever shows up.

In my caddying days, the camps on the Cape all fielded golf teams, and I was a member of my camp team.  Got my letter in golf in high school too.  It was great to play on the camp team, because not only could we play our home course, but we played other courses in competition, and in the middle of the day  (normal, non-tournament play for caddies was after four o’clock until sundown)!  One time I was playing at the Hyannisport Club and noticed Jack Kennedy teeing off a few holes away.  Something to remember.

I’m thinking of the tragedy of Tiger Woods, and I feel sorry for him.  I wish him luck in healing himself and his family, and do hope he’s back on the pro golf tour soon – for the good of the game.

The Woods story does meet the classical definition of tragedy:  the great man (or great sportsman) experiencing a great fall.

But the load of bunk that goes with it has to to with the pro game as it is today:  part of the mega-corporate media/sports monster.  Tiger’s rank hypocrisy, whatever his skill on the course, is that he cultivated a wholesome, safe, family guy image and linked that to his endorsement contracts.  Obviously, he’ll pay a big price for cheating on his wife – a really, really big price, perhaps even the price of his marriage to her.  But, given the largeness of the story, the grotesque tabloid quality of it – with the near-dozen bimbos, the trysts arranged by porno “event planners,” priced in the tens of thousands per week-end – the hypocrisy of Woods the man will linger.

I haven’t looked on athletes as “role models” for a long, long time.  The great athletes do what they do and provide entertainment and thrills; lots and lots live in gated villas in Florida and have boats bigger than the Long Island ferry.  But there are too many stories like Tiger’s to seriously say that jocks are more than jocks these days, if they ever were.  I mean, Babe Ruth liked hot dogs and broads as much as he liked hitting home runs.  It’s an old story.

Harrrummmmph !!!  Say it ain’t so … !

It’s worth recalling though that there was a time, long ago and far away, when pro golf was more pure, more about what went on within the ropes, and less about the creation of corporate personality sportsmen and women.

You don’t have to like golf to appreciate the story of Ben Hogan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDRTqETSIo8

People argue about great golfers all the time, and Woods’ quest on the golf course relates mostly to breaking Jack Nicklaus’ record.

But many people admire Ben Hogan much more, for the kind of man he was, for the kind of man he was forced to become – which left the question of “what might have been” as his career ended.

Hogan did come from Texas dirt:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Hogan

Hogan literally willed himself into becoming a pro golfer, and most experts say he was the greatest pure ball striker ever.

Hogan’s single-minded development came out of his raw upbringing.  When Ben was 9, his father, a blacksmith, committed suicide, and some say Ben saw his father kill himself.  Amidst that chaos, Ben went to work to support his mother and quit high school before graduating.  Along the way, he drove himself into competitive golf, playing scrubby Texas courses to develop his swing, caddying and making money in other ways.  He had a very bad swing early on with a vicious hook, but he corrected it, and after a while began to win as a pro.

The Hogan swing is considered a classic in technique and style, and is still a template for modern power golfers.  Even Tiger Woods has studied Hogan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL_6M_xZvq0

By 1949, Hogan had won the PGA twice and the U.S. Open once.

Then, in February, 1949, he and his wife were driving on a fog-shrouded Texas highway bridge, and they were hit head-on by a Greyhound bus.  Hogan saved his wife by throwing himself across her.  As a result, he suffered a double fracture of the pelvis, a fractured collar bone and ankle, a chipped rib, and serious blood clots.  He was told he’d never play golf again.

After 1949, Hogan came back and won the U.S. Open three more times, the Masters twice, and, in his only attempt,  in 1953:  The British Open.  Nineteen-fifty-three was Hogan’s “slam” season, during which he won the first three majors of the year, a feat no other golfer has matched (Woods won the last three majors in 2000).

In his career he won 64 times on the PGA Tour.  His nine major tournament wins (tied with Gary Player) puts him behind only Nicklaus (18), Woods (14), and Walter Hagen (11).

Hogan did most of that with a very bad back, while in constant pain.  He retired in 1971.

A person who’s never played golf, or who may even hate the game, has no idea how hard it was for Hogan to do what he did.

To The Hawk:  for the good of the game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNgMNK3CtWU