Fore!!

I was born in 1952 and for the first 18 years I lived in a second floor walk up apartment in the Bronx. There were a lot of other kids around and we made our own fun. We “chose up sides” for just about any game we could play. A high bounce Spaulding ball (referred to in the vernacular as a “Spauldeen”). We played stickball, stoop ball, punch ball, “king-queen” which was a version of handball against a building, and box ball along with more formal baseball, football and basketball (broken fingers which thought were just jammed and were never reset and knee injuries which were simply “taped up” using an ace bandage will figure into this piece later).

During the summer between 8th grade and high school (there was no middle school back in the prehistoric days, only 1-8 elementary and then 9-12 high school) my friend Jimmy Paturas asked if I wanted to play golf, a sport I had only read about occasionally in the NYDaily News sports section.

We had a small course walking distance from our buildings, Mosholu, and Jimmy had been passed down a set of a few clubs and he, like me, had never played but wanted to try. So we arrived at the course and were taken aback by the cost of even a junior 9-hole charge, $1.50 at the time but decided to give it a try. We were both terrible holding the club and swinging it with a baseball grip and using the same motions we had used on the diamond but, we both walked off totally hooked.

For my upcoming 13th birthday, I asked my folks for a set of clubs and a bag. I promised I would cover all other costs (green fees, balls etc) moving forward. So off we went to Honig’s Parkway, the local “everything” store where I picked out a set of Spaulding Clubs that consisted of a driver, odd number irons 3,5,7,9 and a putter along with what is now known as a “sunday bag” and I became somewhat obsessed.

I would walk to a local “green space” (hard to come by in our part of the Bronx at that point) that was nothing more than an elongated island along Mosholu Parkway separating the two directions of traffic and would practice as much as possible. I would walk to Mosholu Golf course when I could, and Jimmy and I would play together or sometimes I played as a walk-up addition to another group or simply alone.

Toward the end of my high school years I had become decent, the two summers between junior-senior year and then graduation and first year of college there was regular group of 4 who played 5 or 6 days a week and now that we were driving, we expanded to other courses in the area (NYC and suburbs had many reasonable public courses including Van Cortlandt Park Golf Course considered the oldest public golf course in the nation opened on July 6, 1895 as a nine hole course. The “back 9” consisted of a then unheard of 612-yard par 5 public hole and the final 4 holes doubled, during the winter, as local public ski slope so you can imagine that terrain.

In the summer of 1969, I was spending some time in Long Island with my Uncle Dom, who also loved golf and he took me to play at Bethpage State Park which had (and still has) 5 courses in the complex. We played the Blue Course (and took a riding cart) which was considered a stern test but was well shy of the now legendary Black Course which then, as now, was walking only. He walked me by it, pointed out the “warning” sign at the first tee and said that one day, when my game was up to it, I should make it a point to try it out and he planned to do the same someday as well.

Life, of course, has a funny way of altering the proverbial “best laid plans” and “life” nudged me to a very short stint as an analyst on Wall St in the mid 70s (I hated it, but I did, as part of a trip get to meet and play a few holes with Tom Watson on a work trip to Overland Park, Kansas). Ultimately it took me to Greenwich, CT where I not only taught for decades, but reconnected with an old grad school buddy and took up golf again after many years of parenting, teaching, tutoring, summer school teaching, had thrown many obstacles in the way.

We finally made it to The Black Course beginning in the early 80s driving out from CT at 3 am, queueing up in our car online with everyone else (yes, some still do that even in the days of online tee time reservations) and enjoying every minute of it. We made the trip at least once each summer for a number of years, one time even bringing along a few former students who had graduated and also loved the game. I also did have the great joy of playing one round with Uncle Dom in the early 90’s. I have been fortunate and have been able to play some legendary courses over the years. Scarlett at Ohio State, Seven Oaks at Colgate, LaCosta, and most recently The Ocean Course at Kiawah (a birthday gift from my wife) but The Black remains my absolute favorite.

When we moved to Bluffton, one of the many motivating factors was the opportunity to play golf pretty much year ‘round. Life, again, can be funny and as I move along the cradle-grave railroad ride, the injuries mentioned earlier in this piece (most notably the broken fingers never reset) have made for obstacles that limit my ability to play as much as I’d hoped, coupled with the fact that I have a hard time dealing with how much my game has deteriorated now, when I compare it in my head to being 19 and while I know better, I still “see” 19 when I look in the mirror.

I still love the game and still enjoy playing, but what I have done recently is to supplement it with Virtual Reality golf courtesy of a headset and Golf+VR game. I have a “club” attachment that I can swing and play courses ranging from the Old Course at St. Andrews, Pebble, Harbor Town and Kiawah among others, places I’d still, in my head, love to play but likely would not enjoy as much given the current state of my game.

That brings me to the motivation for this piece. Just yesterday they released Bethpage Black and added it to the available courses. I was as excited to try it in 2025 as I was to line up in the car before dawn in the early 80s. It was even better than I hoped it would be. It was exactly as I remembered it, I was able to walk around it while still anchored in my home here, and while, even in VR land I was not playing the way I did at 19, I was able to play a full round (shot an 81 from the middle tees), and felt like Uncle Dom was walking beside me as I played even though we lost him in 2019.

The only remaining trick now is to take advantage of one of the things that brought us here and get out to the range and hit some balls and see if I can complement “virtual” with reality. Pretty sure Uncle Dom will be smiling along in both cases.

Kevin Fitzpatrick is a retired teacher who, along with his wife Sue (also a retired teacher) is enjoying exploring life in the lowcountry and all it has to offer.