I Get Infected

I was introduced to golf in 1960 by Jimmy Demaret’s TV show All-Star Golf.  I intently watched every episode through the grainy “snow” from our sad antenna pointed towards Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.  All the greats were there:  Dow Finsterwald, Cary Middlecoff, Gene Littler, Gary Player, Arnold Palmer, and my all-time favorite “Slammin’ Sammy” Snead.  To me, they were the embodiment of gentlemanly sportsmanship.  They were my Sunday afternoon friends and heroes.

It was one of the earliest televised one-on-one sports, right there with AMF Bowling Star’s “Whispering Joe Wilson” and  Wrestling From Chicago.  But they didn’t count.  There was no way Gorgeous George or Hans Schmidt or The Sheik or The Gallagher Brothers could be remotely called gentleman sportsmen.

Over the winter weekends, I learned some of the rules, watched how golfers got themselves out of sand traps or took a drop when their shot went into the water.  I learned the etiquette of the greens, learned what an eagle and birdie were and what it meant to have honors on the next tee.  I learned everything you could from a TV show except actually how to physically drive, chip, and putt.  And you didn’t have to be built like a Neanderthal to play.  Hell, Cary Middlecoff was a dentist!

My enthusiasm was noted by classmate Bill Phillipson, who decided to teach me how to play.  I was hesitant, but he insisted and made the whole proposition impossible to refuse:  his father would take us to the course and pick us up.  He’d even pay the green fees.  All I had to do was buy some balls.  After the last day of school, we walked to the uptown Rea & Derrick drug store on Market Street.  I had a dollar bill in my pocket, which was a tidy sum for me at the time.  The place was packed with kids when we got there, but Bill went to a back isle and showed me a very large goldfish bowel filled with used golf balls.  Several had large “smile” creases that had somehow managed to not penetrate the covers.  At 25¢ apiece, it was what I could afford.  I was instructed to buy at least four.  Bill carefully inspected each one, turning each around and around, noting flaws and inferior brands.  He finally picked four Titleists with different numbers.  I was ecstatic:  school was out, I was going to finally play golf, and I was the proud owner of four slightly used golf balls.  What more could I possibly want from life?

The next day, Bill’s father drove us out Route 61 past Oaklyn and then turned up a short gravel road to the top of a low hill.  Across the gravel parking lot was a small, square, clapboard building that looked like a concession stand at an amusement park.  A sign under the roof line said “Sunny Hills Golf.”  It was a weekday, and there was only one other car in the parking lot.  With Bill’s father leading the way, we walked to the left of the building past a large opening with a shelf and a propped-up panel.  Next was an old wooden screen door, and above the screen door was a small sign:  “Kitty McGargle, Proprietor.”

An ad in the Sunbury Daily Item announces another season of par-3 golf at Sunny Hills

Bill and his father walked right in.  Standing behind a counter was an old, short, pop-eyed woman wearing a shopworn sweater.  She obviously knew the two of them.  Bill’s father turned towards me:  “This is Chuck Lytle, and this will be his first round of golf.  Chuck, this is Kitty McGargle.”

An amazingly pleasant smile broke out across her face.  “Welcome to Sunny Hills.  I’m glad Father Phillipson brought you here.  Bill, you take care of him and make sure he learns the rules.”

She turned back to me.  “It costs 50¢ a round, a dollar for all day.  You get two balls, but if you lose any, they’re 50¢ each.  Best to bring your own.”  I pulled mine out of my pocket.  “Good.  You get a putter and an iron.  Don’t break any clubs.  Let’s see, for you a seven iron, same as Bill.”  There were literally hundreds of ancient clubs against the wall behind her and opposite the big opening that looked out at the first tee and ninth green.  She pulled out the two pairs and laid them on the counter.  Bill’s father gave her a dollar for the two of us.  Obviously, it was going to be a great day.

“Now, print your names in the book, and I’ll fill in the rest.”  She slid over a well-worn spiral notebook with hand drawn and labeled columns:  date, name, fee, club, balls.  It was then that I noticed the tiny room had an odd but pleasant smell.  When Kitty put the clubs on the counter, I could tell that it was coming from the countless leather club grips.  Bill picked up a small score card and pencil from a tray on the counter, and out we all went.  Bill’s father left, and there we were, standing behind a rubber mat that looked like the kind out-of-work men made from old tires during the Depression.  In the center was a white rubber cylinder that stuck up about an inch.  “That’s the tee,” said Bill, pointing at the mat.

Bill teed up and tried to explain how to hold the club and how to swing.  How could something that looked so easy on TV have so many mandatory things you just HAD to do?  His first shot went airborne and landed on the left about 2/3 of the way to the green that looked to be at least two miles away.  “Okay, your turn.”

All the things I HAD to do instantly blended together so that nothing was clear.  My club hit the mat about four inches behind the ball.  It hurt like hell.  “Keep your eye on the ball!  You were looking up!”

I tried again, this time I just grazed the top and drove the ball into the ground two feet in front of the tee.  Bill picked it up.  “There goes a quarter.”  He held it up for me to see.  There was a huge smile gouged into the ball.  Through the wide gash, I could see what looked like tightly wound rubber bands.

“Do these count?” I asked.

“Infinite Mulligans your first time out.”  I allowed that I didn’t know what that meant.  I hadn’t heard the term on All-Star Golf.

“Try not thinking at all.”  Bill teed up another of my balls.  This time, I shanked it, and the ball sputtered along about two feet off the ground.  Again, it hurt like hell.  It went half the distance of Bill’s.

“At least it went in the right direction.  Now comes the tough part.”  It was starting to get hot, and those tiny bugs that my father called oats lice were landing on us.  They didn’t bite, but the sensation drove you crazy.  Bill showed me what he called “addressing the ball.”  Looked pretty easy.  “You gotta get under the ball.  Take a divot.”  Okay, I knew what that was, the pros did it all the time.  I swung and took a divot the size of our living room rug.  It hurt like hell.  The ball bounced up and came down three feet away.  “Pretend you’re lifting the ball into the air.  And keep your eye on the ball.  And don’t swing so hard.”

I tried addressing the ball.  I tried to keep my left arm straight.  I tried to keep my eye on the ball.  The oats lice were flying into my eyes.  I HIT IT!  But it didn’t really go into the air.  In went in a flat trajectory, hit the green at a one-degree angle, and in one very long, shallow bounce went into the corn field behind the green.  I looked up at Bill.  “Now what?”  I was getting desperate.  It wasn’t like a water hazard like on TV.  Was there a corn field rule?

“You didn’t get under the ball.  But at least you didn’t destroy it.  Take your victories where you find them.”  Bill took his second shot and landed on the green.  “Now.  You can’t leave your clubs between the green and the tee.  Always off to the side towards the next tee.  I’m going to find your ball.”  He disappeared into the corn field and emerged just a few minutes.  “I found one!”

“But it’s not mine.  The one you found is a Dunlop.”

“Do you hear anybody complaining?”  He dropped it right at the edge of the fairway and kicked it towards the green.  He smiled at me:  “Foot wedge.”  I allowed that I hadn’t heard that one either on All-Star Golf.

“You’re too close to the green to use your iron.  Use the putter AND DON’T HIT IT HARD!”  Bill ran around to the other side of the green.  I hit it so hard it ran across the green and would’ve gone halfway back to the tee, except Bill stopped it with the side of his shoe.  “No penalty.  Caddy’s discretion.  See PGA Rule A.3.6, Paragraph D.”  I allowed that I didn’t know the PGA rules, so I’d have to trust him.

Well, I six-putted the green.  “There, see how easy it is?  We only have eight more holes to go.”

“I lost count.  What’s the score?”

“Let’s see, I got a four, and you got a one, two, three, four, lost ball makes six, seven….uh, I think 13 would be a good guess.”  I was all for not keeping score, but Bill insisted.

Hole number two was very short and all downhill.  “Either take a VERY tiny swing or use your putter.”

Well, I knew that nobody on All-Star Golf teed up with their putter, so I stuck with the seven iron.  Bill teed up, took his tiny swing, and ended up rolling downhill onto the green.  “I feel a par coming on!” 

Damn, it all looked so easy.  I teed up and took a swing that went from four o’clock to seven.  The ball actually went airborne, although the fairly steep downslope did its part.  The ball rolled onto the green, past Bill’s, and ended up about three inches from the cup.  I let out a whoop of triumph.  “I’m Arnold Palmer on his way to his first birdie of the day, and it’s only the second hole!”

Was I really getting the hang of it?  Bill had to show me how to mark my ball.  He actually had a couple of these funny-looking plastic discs with a tiny spike in the center.  Marking my ball meant that I was closest to the cup, a very good sign. I was sure it was an omen for better times ahead.  Bill ended up three-putting for a four.  I had sweat running off the end of my nose and my hands had gotten clammy.  I came up light, but the ball just barely fell in.  “You know what Arnold always says,” said Bill, “never up, never in.”

I had actually shot a birdie on the second hole of my very first round of golf!  I was hooked for life.  It didn’t matter that for the rest of the seven holes, I lost all my balls and two of Bill’s and racked up a score somewhere beyond 100.  I have no memory what Bill shot.  I walked back to the tiny building hot, sweaty, exhausted, and in triumph.

Kitty was all smiles.  “I heard you on number two.  A hole-in-one?”

“No, a birdie.  I was only this far from the cup (I shortened the distance), and my first putt went right in.”  Now I was all smiles.

“Well, keep trying.  A hole-in-one gets your name up on the wall.”  She pointed off to the side to a large poster.  I hadn’t noticed it before.  There were all these names penciled in.  A quick scan revealed no names from All-Star Golf.  I stared a long time.  I just had to get my name up there.  After that, fame and fortune.  I’d be on TV with Jimmy Demaret collecting all this loot.  I’d sign autographs.  There’d be golf clubs and shoes and balls and shirts and jackets and bags and carts all carrying my endorsements.  Everyone in Sunbury would claim they were my best friend ever.  The screen door banged, and in walked Bill’s father.

“Your son’s friend shot an honest-to-goodness birdy on number two,” volunteered Mrs. McGargle.  “We just might be seeing a lot of him this summer.”

 

The Addiction

Kitty McGargle and I became fast friends that summer.  Somehow, she understood that the single round green fee of 50¢ was a hardship of sorts.  Even when I started working after school at Bob Newman’s and then The Bon Ton, I was always short.  I took my weekly pay to the First National Bank at 4^th and Market Streets every week along with my small deposit book.  The teller would insert the book into this machine, press the dollar amount keys, and with a loud stamping sound, it would push up the open book.  In three years, I never saw a single dime of the money I earned.  “My College Fund” my parents called it.  What little money I had to spend was earned by baby sitting local cousins and ephemeral odd jobs.  Up until now, these meager funds went to buying magazines (Worlds of If, Galaxy, Model Railroader, Mad, Sky and Telescope), an occasional Revel plastic model airplane, and paperbacks.  Now there was golf, so something had to give.  I decided it had to be plastic models and paperbacks.  Because I had no transportation and because the Old Man wouldn’t shuttle me back and forth, I had to brow-beat classmates to play with me.  Well, at least the ones whose fathers would drive us.  This eased up the summer after my sophomore year when one by one they got their driver’s licenses.  First on the list was Larry Bassett, who lived way out of town near Klinesgrove but whose mother would let him have her Ambassador Airflite Six just about whenever he wanted it.  Other more or less regulars included Bill, whom you’ve already met, Mike Rohrbach, and some of the band crowd:  Jake Gass, Dennis Pritts, a few others.  Usually, there’d just be two of us.

It didn’t take long until Kitty knew us all by name.  We became regulars.  Wednesday was our day because most of the locally owned stores closed at noon to make up for having to stay open twelve hours on Saturday.  I would scrounge up a dollar and a friend with a car, and we’d hit the course right after lunch and play until the early evening.  Kitty wouldn’t let anybody out after 7 PM so that the course would clear out before it got dark.

Finally, my mother shamed the Old Man into making the short drive out to Sunny Hills on the evenings I had 50¢.  It didn’t happen a lot, especially since he HATED having to sit in the car in the parking lot waiting for me to finish on the days he was early.  Anyway, with having to also pay for golf with one or more friends, I rarely had an extra 50¢ to play by myself in the evening.  Usually, there’d be nobody there but me.  The few people on the course would be on the home stretch to Kitty’s tiny “clubhouse,” in a hurry to get home to supper.  (We always ate WAY early, a leftover from the days the Old Man worked at Champ Hats and would come home from the factory half starved to death.  Supper was on the table at 5:15 PM sharp every weekday night.)

On those evenings, it was quiet on the course.  I could feel and hear a good shot: that effortless contact with the club face and the perfect “click” of metal on ball.  I lived for that wonderful sound of the ball rattling into the cup.  The wind would usually pick up as the sun got low, and the oats lice would go back to wherever they rested up before beginning again their morning onslaught.  The humidity would back off to just a mild envelope.  I shared the course with fireflies, nighthawks, swallows, and an occasional bat.  I developed this habit of standing on the ninth green after putting out and looking back over the course.  Way in the distance, the ancient fight path beacon on Trevorton Mountain would be just starting up and slowly revolving red, red, red, bright white.  I wasn’t looking for anything, just trying to feel the course, feel golf, and watch the fairways settle down for the night.  I’d turn around to find Kitty leaning on the shelf of the big opening, watching me with a smile on her face.  I never told her what I was thinking.  I assumed she’d think I was a lunatic.  Now, looking back over more than half a century, I’m not so sure.

I think Kitty was lonely on those summer evenings.  I usually finished before the Old Man arrived, and Kitty would open up and talk about the old days.  She was totally Scottish.  Her dead husband had been a golf pro, and Sunny Hills had been his retirement.  Kitty hinted that she had been something of a tyro herself back in the salad days of her youth.  She would grow silent for a moment and then seem to remember something particular and smile.  Then she’d realize that I was standing on the other side of the counter.  “Oh.  Well.  That was a long time ago.”

“What was?”  She would realize that I had no idea what she was remembering and change the subject.  “So how’s your game coming along?”

As I slowly got better, I mentioned to Kitty one hot August evening that I was overdriving some of the greens. “I thought your game was looking better.  You should switch to either an eight or nine iron.  Just a minute.”  She went over to the far corner and rummaged through a whole bundle of stacked up clubs.  “I know it’s here somewhere.”  She took a step back and started scanning back and forth.  She suddenly reached through a tangle of ancient shafts with ancient grips and pulled out a club, others clattering onto the floor.  She put the club on the counter.

“THIS was my husband’s eight iron.”  She unconsciously held it tightly in her hand.  The shaft was either bamboo or greenheart.  The grip was worn with a patina gained by impossible shots and long-forgotten victories.  “I want you to try it and tell me if it helps.”  It almost seemed as if she couldn’t loosen her grip.

I was almost afraid to touch it and expected some sort of mystical surge to run up from my fingers into my head.  “Don’t break it,” she said firmly.

Yeah right.  No pressure, you understand.  Fifty-some-odd years of a golfing life were distilled down into that club.  And something else, too.  But it took me a while to understand what it was.  I felt it, but it was too misterioso for a sixteen-year-old to understand on such short notice.  But there was something brewing.  Just that morning walking home from the Bon Ton, I stopped in at Rea’s and found four Titleist Number Fives in the goldfish bowl.  (I had decided way back in fourth grade that five was my lucky number.  At this late remove, I have no idea how I came to that conclusion.  But there it was.)  I pulled one out of my pocket, teed up, swung, and effortlessly put it on the green.  Whoa!  Was it the club?  The ball?  Me?  I turned, and there was Kitty, her elbows on the shelf and her head in her hands, intently watching me.  And she had the biggest smile I had ever seen.

It was my dream round.  Unfortunately, I had nobody with me to witness it.  Kitty could only really see me on the first and ninth holes.  I made more pars than ever before.  On my nemesis the ninth hole, I did something brand new:  I was on the green in one and one-putted.  I looked up, and there she was as if she hadn’t moved a muscle.  She was still grinning.

 

My Last Season

I don’t remember how it all got arranged, but during the summer of 1964 after I had graduated, the Old Man would drop me off as usual as close to 5:30 as was humanly possible.  I could usually get in two rounds, but in lieu of paying the green fee, on the second round I’d stop along the fairways and pull out the big sprinkler heads from their sunken, green wooden boxes and set them out per Kitty’s direction.  After putting out, I’d put one right at the edge of each green.  While walking up to the club house, Kitty would turn on the water.  There was this contraption with a big spring inside that would start to slowly wind down.  Kitty explained it would turn off all the water in about an hour or so.  I’d help her lower the big wooden cover over the side opening and then sit on the bench right by the door while she locked up.  She’d drive me to the 11^th and Market Street intersection and drop me off.  Home was just two blocks down the hill to Wolverton Street.  Because the Old Man didn’t have to make a second trip or chance having to wait for me in the car and because the golf was free, it was all too perfect.

I never took a friend along with me on those evenings.  It wouldn’t have been right.  Towards the end of the summer when the day I’d be leaving for college was getting close, I finally came to understand what was going on the day Kitty gave me her husband’s eight iron.  That iron and the course WERE Kitty’s husband.  I wasn’t sure what she was seeing while she watched me on the fairways that day.  But it was obviously something very deep and special.  And it wasn’t me she saw. That day and probably most evenings when the night hawks were circling high and the fireflies were lighting up the course, she was watching her husband out there, making holes-in-one and birdies, singing to himself songs from the old country.  And she was with him, holding the flag and gently reminding him to keep his eye on the ball.

The legend lives!  Although now a singular hill rather than “Hills,” you can follow in the footsteps of the entire class of 1964 golfing crazies and feel the magic.  I might even wager that, if you find yourself out on the course in the evening after the sun’s down and the fireflies are lighting up the greens and the moon is just a fingernail in the east over Trevorton Mountain, you just might hear a rough voice shouting “Fore!” somewhere behind you.  If you quick glance up at the clubhouse you just might catch Kitty smiling as she watches you putt out.