Turk Pipkin - The Old Man and the Tee: How I Took Ten Strokes Off My Game and Learned to Love Golf All Over Again

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C ONTENTS

To Pip

And to old men everywhere

F OREWORD

When Turk Pipkin asked me to help him drop ten shots off his game in one year, with his final exam being a round at none other than Pebble Beach, I knew only a Texan could think so big! Having spent twenty-five-plus years teaching some of the best players in the world, I knew we had our work cut outbut it is, after all, only a game.

As with any player I work with, from major winners to weekend warriors, Ive always felt the first step toward improvement is having a clear understanding of ones game, a blueprint for improvement if you will. At six feet seven inches tall, Turk looked like he was trying to swing the golf club like that other Texan, Ben Hogan, who was considerably smaller at five feet seven. In short, his swing did not fit his posture.

Armed with a clear concept of how he needed to swing the club, Turk was able to apply the aspects of sound technique to his taller frame using visual feedback and some simple drills. With a purposeful practice plan and a willingness to stay the course, Turk demonstrates how much enjoyment one can have while chasing a lifelong dream.

Ultimately The Old Man and the Tee is a very humorous account of Turk Pipkins goal to become a better golfer. Turks quest is filled with entertaining experiences and encounters reminding us of just how challenging and fun this game can be. Whether youve played the game for a lifetime or youre just starting out, this book will certainly make you laugh and might even inspire you to find out how good you really are!

David Leadbetter

Fish, he said softly and aloud,

Ill stay with you until I am dead.

Ernest Hemingway,
The Old Man and the Sea

C HAPTER 1

The Beginning of the End

That last perfect moment is frozen in my mind, a crystalline memory of how the world would never be againthe rising sun painting halos on the treetops, the spray of morning dew as a ball came rolling through the fringe, the scent of pine trees and sea air on the days first breeze.

Its tournament week at Pebble Beach and life is good. A smile on my face, Im on the putting green trading jokes with players and caddies alike. Since I was a scrawny kid learning to play golf in bone-dry West Texas, Ive longed to be here for the Crosby Clambake. My dad loved Bing, Bob, and Arnie, and the two of us always tuned in for the broadcast.

I was seven or eight, watching the Crosby on TV, when Bob Hope told the first golf joke I ever heard.

How come a golfer wears two pairs of socks?

In case he gets a hole in one.

Okay, its not much of a joke, but to an entertainment-deprived kid in Hicksville, it was practically hilarious. I told that joke to everyone I knew, starting with my dad, whod missed it on TV, and Ive never forgotten that he actually laughed. Who knows? Maybe that first laugh from my father was part of why I would later spend a decade of my life telling jokes in comedy clubs.

Even though the tournament name has long since changed to the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, I still feel like a big kid in a dream as I walk the putting green with Furyk and Fluff. Ive got a rented red convertible, a press pass for the week, and an assignment to write a story aboutand this is almost too good to be truethose age-old nuggets called golf jokes.

So what if the jokes Im hearing are lamer than a one-legged kick-boxer? Jokes arent about setups and punch lines; jokes are about the people who tell them. For the next four days, the people telling them to me will be Bill Murray, Ray Romano, and just about everyone else who knows how to skate into a big-time golf tournament on a good laugh.

Perhaps it is too perfect. Or perhaps the golf gods simply have other plans for me, because just as Fluff starts to tell me a joke, the cell phone in my pocket vibrates its silent ring. I ignore it, but in a few moments the phone begins to vibrate again. Stepping to one side, I answer the call, listen a moment, and then Im gone.

I dont even say good-bye.

Five minutes later Im driving like a madman, doing seventy in a forty-five zone as I race toward the airport, hoping to make the next plane to Texas and praying my father will live long enough for me to see him again.

I didnt have any idea how much that morning would change my life. Id never known the kind of loss I faced that day, didnt have a clue how lucky Id been so far or how determined I could become.

I certainly didnt know that phone call would lead me to the doorsteps of golfs greatest teachers, or that I would throw myself upon their mercy, saying, Help me become a golfer my father would have been proud of.

I didnt know Id dream up the crazy idea of trying to take ten strokes off my game in just a year, that Id ignore my kids in order to hit practice balls in the hot Texas sun until my lips bled, that Id become so obsessed that my wife would wonder if she even knew me. I didnt know that Id come to doubt who I was and what my life had been about. All I knew was I had to go fast.

* * *

This is a story about the love for your father that is inherent in all of us who are lucky enough to have known a fathers love. Its a story about the love of a game that seems to have an almost mystical hold on those who come under its spell. Its a story about repaying love that can never be repaid, about forgiving a broken mind and mending a broken heart. Its a story about turning a broken machine that was flawed in the first place into a thing of occasional beauty, then laying it all on the line for no particular reason other than to say, Thanks, Dad. Wish you were here.

Ultimately, its the story of what it takes to hit the ball in the sweet spot and launch it with a perfect rising arc toward a distant flag. A story about how to hit the right shots at the right times, and the wrong shots when they wont hurt you.

Though Im hardly qualified to preach or teach the gospel known as golf lessons, its also quite possible that this story may teach you what youve always wanted to know about mans most exquisite game.

Considering all that, I suppose I should start at the beginning.

I was just a short-stuff when my father first took me to the sunburned links of West Texas and taught me how to carry a bag and tend a pin. I was too young for the work, and I think he knew it, but I was determined to give it a try, and he gave in to my pleas.

Even though his bag occasionally dragged the ground that day, I still managed to slog around eighteen holes without falling too far behind. That night, completely exhausted, I fell asleep dreaming of my day in the company of men as we walked on playing fields of green. Who knows, perhaps Ive never stopped dreaming of that day.

How else can you explain that forty years laterthough still not much of a playerI was more obsessed with golf than ever? Having given up the world of stand-up comedy, Id started writing for a living, turning out books, scripts, and magazine stories. Somehow Id managed to write about whatever I wanted, and the subject I most often chose to write about was golf.

Id written about golf in the pastures of Texas and on the links of Scotland, about greens made of sand and greens mowed by sheep, about night golf played by the light of the moon or the glow of a cigarette. Id even written a novel called Fast Greens about a young caddie in search of a father, and because I didnt want my dad to take the story personally, Id also written about the joy of caddying for and playing with my old man.