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Your First Golf Memory

Playing Lakeview & Wyldwood on the 7th. Line [we called it "Weeds" with my Buds: we were somewhat a little warped, then!!]
Think now, Wyldwood is called Royal Ontario on Trafalgar Road.
Left the Westside of Oakville in my Rear View Mirror a long time ago!!
Cheers.
 
First time I golfed was at Rolling Acres Golf Course outside of Beaver Falls, PA. A bunch of co-workers invited me one day after work and set me up with a set of old clubs. Our group had just moved to that area, so they had nothing to do. I had just come out of what I had thought was a serious relationship, so I had nothing to do. We played nine holes. I don;t remember what I shot exactly - it was somewhere around 60 - but I was hooked. Two days later I was picking up a set of Sam Snead Blue Ridge clubs at Service Merchandise on the other side of Pittsburgh.
 
My favorite uncle had just survived cancer. It was a rare rainy day in So. Cal and I insisted we keep playing. He played like crap and was frustrated. At one point he turned and said something to me like "I #$(*ing beat cancer and now my nephew is trying to kill me on the golf course with the cold rain." I knew he was giving me sh*t and that really meant he was happy we were spending time together, even if he was suffering.
 
Back when I was a touring musician we had two days off in the Kerrville, TX area just a bit northwest of San Antonio. This would've been... 1999 or so.

We stayed at a big ranch (long story). They had an ostrich there (even longer story).

I had never picked up a golf club other than at the putt-putt course.

Two of the guys in the band were golfers and had brought their clubs. I was bored and they said hey let's go hit balls. The ranch was huge so there was no problem with us launching a few balls out into the brush.

One of them showed me the basics, I took a few hacks with a 7i, missed once or twice, hit a dribbler, then: got lucky, caught one flush and off it went, looking like a golf shot, flying out past the ostrich.

Hooked, immediately.
 
My first golf memory has to be playing with my extended family at a family reunion. It was my first time on a course and coming from a baseball background I figured it would translate over. Boy was I in for a surprise. I stepped up on the first tee, swung and missed the ball completely. My uncle commented "I bet if I threw the ball at you, you'd hit it".
 
pattyboy21 said:
I was about 4 and my dad took me for a walk at a golf course in Statesville, NC. He carried a golf club with him and before long we found a golf ball in the rough. He dropped it on the fairway and hit it onto the green (which to me looked like about a mile away). The sound it made and the flight of the ball made me instantly fall in love with golf!
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Dad rips an iron to a green, which I assume you were not aware at the time was possible. Instant hero status haha!

Very cool.
 
Bcape9 said:
My first golf memory has to be playing with my extended family at a family reunion. It was my first time on a course and coming from a baseball background I figured it would translate over. Boy was I in for a surprise. I stepped up on the first tee, swung and missed the ball completely. My uncle commented "I bet if I threw the ball at you, you'd hit it".
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I have a first golf memory with you.

Giving Pete and Slinger a run for their money with blueberry infused vodkas as liquid courage.
 
Canadan said:
I have a first golf memory with you.

Giving Pete and Slinger a run for their money with blueberry infused vodkas as liquid courage.
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Yes sir! That was a fun one.

Also, blueberry infused vodkas 🤤
 
Bcape9 said:
My first golf memory has to be playing with my extended family at a family reunion. It was my first time on a course and coming from a baseball background I figured it would translate over. Boy was I in for a surprise. I stepped up on the first tee, swung and missed the ball completely. My uncle commented "I bet if I threw the ball at you, you'd hit it".
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Played with a guy who played baseball all through college yesterday and we talked about the adjustments to playing golf. You hit upon one of the big ones. In baseball no one swings at balls below their ankles (at least not if he wants to be on the team for long). So, the plane you need to swing on is quite the adjustment. OTOH, a good baseball player understands the importance of hands ahead of the barrel of the bat, so having hands ahead of the club head at impact is second nature.
 
My first golf memory is playing mini-golf with my dad. I lived across the country and it was something we did every time I went to visit him.

My first real golf memory is going to a driving range the summer before my freshman year in high school with a friend who was planning to join the high school golf team. I liked it, convinced my parents to buy me a cheap set of clubs, and joined the team too. I never actually competed, but I got to play 9 holes every day after school at the local country club. I moved onto other sports in high school, but I’ve been golfing on and off since.

The early golf memory that really sticks out to me though, and still chaps my hide over 30 years later, was one involving that friend from high school a few months after I started playing. He was always overly competitive with me, and looked for any reason to knock me down. I had recently got my first pair of spikes. At some point, I guess I twisted my foot when I reached down to pick up a ball, tearing up the green a little bit in the process. I didn’t notice it, and instead of just telling me about it, he waited until the end of the round and ratted me out as if I was purposely not fixing those marks.

I‘m still pissed about that think you’re a punk for it, Donnie!
 
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Unfortunately my real first golf memory was a tragic accident. I was 4 years old when I was hit in the head with a golf club (5 iron to be exact) by my next door neighbor, who was 9 at the time.
I was across the street hitting balls around in his back yard. He had a huge yard that backed up to woods, so we could hit balls as far as we wanted. (funny, similar to my yard now as an adult) He wanted to hit balls too. I gave him the club & he was hitting around a bit. That's when it happened. I bent down to pick up the ball because my mom was yelling across the street to come home .... then BAM! He was in the middle of hitting the ball & hit my head instead. To this day, I'm not sure it was done by accident or not.
Anyway I was lucky enough to stay conscious enough to run across the street to my mother that was sitting on our porch. That's when I passed out with a gaping hole in the left side of my head.
Long story short, I ended up in the hospital for over a month. Numerous surgeries to remove broken pieces of my skull & then a year later to place a metal plate in my head to cover the hole. (being 4 years old, my head was still growing)
So to this day, I have a metal plate & a scar. The scar was a good conversation piece when I was in high school & college. It just happens to look like an "A" ... so I would get some funny comments. "Is that your initial, your fraternity prank, are you an A*****e or what?"
Weird way to get introduced to the game huh? :eek:
 
I remember the first time my dad took me to the range and to play nine holes at Clifton Hollow GC just 10 minutes south of our house. I had been avidly hitting balls around our yard to 4 bicycle flags he had spread out about 20-35 yards apart around the lawn. We would have a chip/pitch competition at least a couple of days a week after he got home from work and he always had a Scotch and water or beer with him as we played from flag to flag. I had been doing that for two summers when one day he announced that we would be playing 9 holes on Saturday. I was so excited I could barely go to sleep and I remember many details of that day including shooting a 61.

I only played twice more that year as football practice had already started but I quit baseball the next year, got bit by the golf bug, and immersed myself in the game by the time I was 13. I also remember how gracious he was the first time I beat him and how proud he was to witness the first time I shot even par. He even bragged a bit about it to a few of his golf buddies and he never bragged about anything. :)
 
I grew up in a lower middle class family in South Carolina. I knew nothing about golf and didn't really know anyone that played. I remember getting interested in golf when Tiger started playing on the tour. I was around 25 at the time and went out and bought a cheap set of clubs. I invited my dad to go to the driving range with me and we were both terrible, but once in a while we would get lucky and make solid contact. It was amazing. My dad was a big muscular guy that had been into weightlifting for quite a while. He was in his mid-40s at the time and absolutely smashed it one time. I still remember the look on his face.

Unfortunately, my dad was diagnosed with cancer shortly after that and we never had a chance to play a round together. I guess that is one of the reasons I try and share as many interests like golf as I can with my sons. You never know if you will get that opportunity again.
 
tahoebum said:
I remember the first time my dad took me to the range and to play nine holes at Clifton Hollow GC just 10 minutes south of our house. I had been avidly hitting balls around our yard to 4 bicycle flags he had spread out about 20-35 yards apart around the lawn. We would have a chip/pitch competition at least a couple of days a week after he got home from work and he always had a Scotch and water or beer with him as we played from flag to flag. I had been doing that for two summers when one day he announced that we would be playing 9 holes on Saturday. I was so excited I could barely go to sleep and I remember many details of that day including shooting a 61.

I only played twice more that year as football practice had already started but I quit baseball the next year, got bit by the golf bug, and immersed myself in the game by the time I was 13. I also remember how gracious he was the first time I beat him and how proud he was to witness the first time I shot even par. He even bragged a bit about it to a few of his golf buddies and he never bragged about anything. :)
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I love that build up, and that he let you get a bit of a sense of the game before heading out to the course. Very cool.
 
Brimstone said:
I grew up in a lower middle class family in South Carolina. I knew nothing about golf and didn't really know anyone that played. I remember getting interested in golf when Tiger started playing on the tour. I was around 25 at the time and went out and bought a cheap set of clubs. I invited my dad to go to the driving range with me and we were both terrible, but once in a while we would get lucky and make solid contact. It was amazing. My dad was a big muscular guy that had been into weightlifting for quite a while. He was in his mid-40s at the time and absolutely smashed it one time. I still remember the look on his face.

Unfortunately, my dad was diagnosed with cancer shortly after that and we never had a chance to play a round together. I guess that is one of the reasons I try and share as many interests like golf as I can with my sons. You never know if you will get that opportunity again.
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It is amazing how that one shot, that perfect strike, out of 100 balls can still promote an absolute obsession with the game.

DId your boys have fun first memories?
 
Grew up near an orchard and we had apple, apricot, walnut, and pecan trees. When I was probably 4 or 5, I'd take my dad's old persimmon 3 wood and hit pecans off the deck pretending I was Jack Nicklaus. He didn't like getting crap all over his clubs so he got some balls from a garage sale and let me hit them around the yard. To the south was a turkey farm, so that was off limits. But I once absolutely tattooed a ball into the neighbors house to the north, probably 150 yards (I was 5, at most). Old guy named Charlie lived there. He was out mowing the lawn and stopped to bring me my ball. He said it was a heck of a hit, wasn't even mad. Wish I could say hitting tiny pecans made me a better ballstriker, but missed the boat on that. Hitting them with a baseball bat did give me great hand-eye coordination though.
 
Canadan said:
It is amazing how that one shot, that perfect strike, out of 100 balls can still promote an absolute obsession with the game.

DId your boys have fun first memories?
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My older son (18) never got into golf that much, although he enjoys hitting the range occasionally. He is a trap shooter (shotguns). That is our thing. We shoot a lot together. He is pretty good. He won the US Open in the Jr. High division a few years ago.

My younger son (16) was hooked the first time we went out. He would go every day if he could. This pic is the first time we played 18 together when he was 11.

South Mtn.jpg
 
Going with my dad to the old Hawaiian Open PGA Tour event. He was in the Air Force and was stationed over there for 3 years. I was about 5 years old.
 
Canadan said:
Dad rips an iron to a green, which I assume you were not aware at the time was possible. Instant hero status haha!

Very cool.
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Dad played golf at NC State and once beat Billy Casper (badly) in a match. After the match, Casper announced he was going to play on the PGA tour and Dad thought he'd never amount to anything. Dad was wrong! lol
 
leftshot said:
Now I'm the grandpa taking the grandkids to the range. Bought three kid's clubs: a driver, an iron and a putter. They love going "to golf" with grandpa.
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They’ll remember you taking them for the rest of their lives.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
RohammedAli said:
They’ll remember you taking them for the rest of their lives.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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So will some other players on the range. My granddaughters had some of them cracking up!
 
I remember getting my first set of clubs on my 7th birthday. Remember going to the course(Dutchaven) for my first round. Also remember trying to tee up my 2 shot from the rough and learning that you aren't supposed to do that.

What's funny about Dutchaven was one time JB and I were meeting with a VP at Matrix shafts, and he was talking about 9 hole rounds. Turns out one of the courses he used to play often was the same course I had my first round, and the course that was my home course growing up.
 
I went to take a lesson having never picked up a club in my life. A friend had loaned me a set of clubs to take for the lesson. The pro pulls out a club, gets a funny look on his face, then asks me if the guy who let me use them was under 5’ tall based on how they sat. 🤣. in all honesty, someone had given them to him and he had never swung a club either.

Anyways, we go to the putting green and my first lesson was all chipping. From my first chip to the last the pro kept asking if I was sure I had never played before. I never hoped one out but every chip was within 6” of the hole. Wish I could do that now haha.
 
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