By GARY LARRABEE

I have observed them mostly from a distance lo this past half-century from my vantage points in Salem and Wenham. But now that I have given their legacy a closer look, I marvel at the dedication and commitment Ted Murphy and his family have given to the game in this golf hotbed of Haverhill.

“We’ve had a lot of fun,” said Ted Murphy, 82, who bought the sporty Garrison Golf Course on Hilldale Avenue in 1969. It is now known as Murphy’s Garrison Golf Center, as it has grown from simply a nine-hole course to a facility that also features instruction, a roomy driving range and a highly reputable junior program. “Every day I get up and go to the Center, approaching my work for what it really is – fun,” Murphy said.

The Murphys celebrate their 50th season at Garrison this year – a remarkable accomplishment in any business, let alone golf with its mix of loyal and fickle participants.

The “fun” perspective to golf – in work and play – has well-served Ted, wife Mary and the Murphy children (Kevin, Brian, Colleen and Maureen). The great game has embraced all of them profoundly. Mary, even while she raised the four little Murphys while dad spent 16-hour days at Garrison, spent countless hours in the pro shop, giving the kids the run of the place when they were old enough. Their home has always been an ancient farmhouse on the golf course property.

First-born son Kevin became the chip off the old man’s block, living and working the game as he grew up, captaining the state champion 1990 Haverhill High golf team that included Marc Spencer, Keith Cutler and Billy Drohen. After learning the golf business from his dad, Kevin turned professional and, five years ago, purchased the 18-hole, semi-private Bradford Golf Club with wife Kristin. Kevin has been Haverhill High golf coach since 1999.

Brother Brian lives in Connecticut and has been a Titleist sales rep for more than 30 years. Colleen is a physical therapist who plays golf regularly, as does Maureen, who works for DataTech and, prior to that, was a Titleist employee for 15 years.

“I’m thrilled that all my children love the game and three of them chose to work in the game,” said patriarch Ted, a Woburn native and graduate of the famed UMass Stockbridge School of Agriculture (turf management). Ted’s talent with grass was so obvious, his first job out of college was as course superintendent at Lexington Golf Club, a job he held for 14 years before making the big leap – at a cost of $100,000 – and acquired Garrison.

Ted and Mary’s extraordinary promotion of junior golf at Garrison and their endless support of the youth in the area were just two of the many reasons they were honored in 2017 at the Haverhill YMCA’s Legacy Dinner at Bradford Country Club.

Mary, 78, has volunteered at St. Joseph’s School and St. Joseph’s Church, served on the City of Haverhill Parks and Recreation Commission and as a board member of the Haverhill YMCA.

The couple has been big boosters of Haverhill High athletics and for nearly 50 years have co-sponsored the Haverhill Gazette Santa Fund Hole-in-One contest that has raised more than $200,000 for needy Haverhill children and adults.

Ted and Mary also have been honored with the Liberty Bell Award from the Haverhill Bar Association, as Greater Haverhill Chamber of Commerce Outstanding Business Persons of the Year, as recipients of the Greater Haverhill Chamber of Commerce Community Leadership Award and the Yankee Clipper Council Boy Scouts of America Distinguished Citizens Awards.

How soon is the city erecting Ted and Mary Murphy bronze statues?

Ted has done his thing for all these years owning and operating Garrison while providing a strong focus on junior golf. He remains a solid player in his 80s as well. He has, in effect, worn two big hats all these years at Garrison as its course superintendent and a member of the New England Section of the PGA.

“My dad’s as proud of one position he’s held as superintendent as he is of being a member of the NEPGA all these years,” says Kevin, an NEPGA member and heir apparent of the Murphy golf business. “He and our mom have inspired all us Murphy kids and I think we’ve made them proud.”

Bottom line: the Murphy clan, led by mom and dad, are one of the special golf families we are blessed to have here in Boston’s northern neighborhood. May they continue to thrive and champion the game we love.

By BILL BROTHERTON

Mike Eruzione, the longtime Winthrop resident who captained the 1980 Miracle on Ice U.S. Olympic Gold Medal hockey team at Lake Placid, had met Donald Trump many times.
“He has always struck me as a nice guy,” said Eruzione, a Tedesco CC member.
One day, the club pro at Trump International Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida, where Eruzione is also a member, approached him and said, “Mike, the president would like to play golf with you.”
A date was set to tee it up at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, but a scheduling conflict meant Eruzione had to cancel. Yes, he canceled on the president.
“A few weeks later, we both were available. So, on Saturday, April 21, we played,” Eruzione said without a hint of awe. “Tiger (Woods) was supposed to play, too, but he canceled at the last minute. So it was Tiger’s business manager, a three-handicap, the club’s head pro, the president and me.
“It was a fun round, with lots of laughter. I never felt I was with the president. It was more like I was with the guy I met before. … except there were lots of Secret Service agents following us around.”
Eruzione said the par 72 championship course, designed by Jim Fazio, is unlike any other course in mostly-flat Florida. It’s hilly, and the elevation of the 18th tee is 58 feet above sea level. Opened in 1999, it’s been rated the No. 1 course in Florida by Florida Golf Magazine and is a top 50 course in both Golf Digest and Golf magazine rankings.
Trump, even at age 70, is considered by many to be one of the finest golfers to ever occupy the White House. During his term, his handicap has wavered from 3 to 5.
Eruzione said the 18 holes sped by in three hours. A lot of short putts were deemed gimmes and “presidential mulligans” were granted.
“He hit it well,” said Eruzione, adding that no one officially kept score. “The fast pace of play is important to him.”
Eruzione, who carries a handicap index of 8.6 and once played to a 3, said he had a “usual round, a lot of pars, one birdie and a few doubles. I lost one ball.”
Primarily self-taught, the 63-year-old hockey hero said he never played golf until his hometown gifted him with a free Winthrop Golf Club membership after the 1980 Olympics. “I still play with the boys there quite a bit. We have lots of fun and giggles. Winthrop is a really fun course. I caddied there, starting when I was about eight years old, and I can see the eighth hole from my house.
“I have four grandchildren, a ready-made foursome for Winthrop … or an illegal fivesome if they invite me along.”
By now, Eruzione must be supremely comfortable socializing with celebrities and all-star athletes. Before the 2016 Ryder Cup at Hazeltine National GC in Minnesota, team captain Davis Love III asked Eruzione to address the players.
“Fostering a team concept in an individual sport like golf can be tough,” said Eruzione. “I was nervous at first, with (Jordan) Spieth and (Phil) Mickelson and others looking at me. I talked about our Olympics team and how teamwork made the difference. We may not have had the best players, but as a team we played better than everybody. It went over really well.”
Eruzione said after his speech, which took place in Norton, Mickelson approached and shook his hand, praising his talk.
He was invited to follow the team during the Ryder Cup matches. “During that Mickelson-(Sergio) Garcia match, I was right there inside the ropes. They both shot 63. The two made 19 birdies between them. It is considered one of the greatest matches of all time.”
That’s pretty impressive, but Eruzione jokes that he’s one-up on Mickelson. During a pre-Ryder Cup bonding session at Foxboro Stadium, a flag was placed on the football field for a closest-to-the-pin contest. Mickelson knocked it four feet from the makeshift hole. Eruzione said his shot was closer. “I have the photo to prove it,” he said with a laugh.

By Anne Marie Tobin

They don’t make ’em like Reedy Meadow’s Bobby Baker anymore.
Baker, in his 68th season as a self-described jack-of-all-trades at the Lynnfield golf course, is a throwback to the glory days of golf when the workday began at dawn and wound down at dusk.
Baker and his wife, Toni, loved every minute of it. They live in a house that borders the 9-hole course on Summer Street.
“I never called it work, because it wasn’t work at all, it was my passion and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way,” said Baker, who celebrated his 80th birthday last August. “I lived at the course, first in the ‘cottage’ and then in this house, and I never felt I couldn’t get away from my work, because it wasn’t work, it was love, pure and simple.”
Baker’s love affair with Reedy Meadow (then known as Lynnfield Center Golf Club) began in 1950, shortly after the course had reopened after being closed since 1941. He started as a shag boy and caddie.
“What I first remember about Lynnfield Center is it was a sod farm during World War II until about 1950,” Baker said. “I was 12 or 13 when I started to work here. I helped roll the sod, and I shagged balls and caddied for guys like the golf pro, Rollie Wormstead, Ross Coon, Bob Hawkes, Freddie Best and Bob Davis. I also worked with the superintendent changing the cups. It was different in those days, when there were no golf carts so you had to walk everywhere. We had dirt tees and no tractors, just hand mowers.
“We finally got golf carts in 1960,” Baker said. “We got them for $1,800 each from Musinsky’s in Lynn; they were 3-wheelers. We had two at first, then started adding a couple or so after that every year.”
Born in Lynn, Baker moved to Lynnfield in 1949. He attended the old Center School and South schools before graduating from Wakefield High. “Back then, there was no high school in Lynnfield, so we all went to Wakefield.”
After a 3-year stint in the Marines, Baker returned home to work in his father’s business, Edgewood Oil, while continuing to work part-time at Lynnfield Center.
After his father sold the business, Baker landed a full-time job at the golf course for the Cox family, taking over as manager in 1965. He served in that role until 2005, when the town purchased the course.
1965 was a milestone year for Baker for another reason: He got married. Baker jokingly refers to his wife Tony as “the other half of the Baker tag team.”
Tony worked 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the pro shop after as the Baker family grew. Bobby and Pam were born when the family lived in the nearby cottage; Kevin was born when they resided in the Summer Street house. “They used to go duck hunting all the time. It was great place to grow up,” said Baker.
The children found the golf course was also a great place to raise goats, chickens, rabbits and even horses.
“People used to say, ‘This isn’t a golf course, it’s a zoo.’ When the goats escaped from their pen, they would jump all over the golf carts, sometimes even the people,” Baker said. “Chickens used to roost on the roof of the pro shop, waiting for doughnut crumbs. Once a goat got loose and started eating an old-timer’s cigar, the goat whacked him, then came after me. The old guy asked whose dog that was, (he thought the goat was a dog), and I just said the guy that lives next door. He didn’t know I lived next door.
“Back then, the course and the Danforth House nursing home were still going strong. The kids used to bring the animals there, so the old people who were out sunning themselves could play with them. It was a beautiful place back then, with lilacs and roses and beautiful gardens.”
Baker also worked winters in the early 1960s at Thomson Club in North Reading .
“I worked for Frank Merchel, their first superintendent, repairing all of their equipment that would get destroyed because of all the rocks. That course just destroyed your irons and, if I remember it right, the members used to carry ‘rock irons’ in their bags to use so they wouldn’t wreck their good clubs. They used to have rock parties there, when the members would go out and pick up rocks like they were potato picking.”
Baker has remained a fixture at the golf course since the town bought it 13 years ago. These days, Baker’s role at Reedy Meadow has been cut back due to health issues
“Bobby Baker is why this place is relevant, why people want to come here to play,” said current PGA golf professional Donnie Lyons. “This golf course isn’t the best, it isn’t the best-conditioned compared to some other courses, but people are here because of the way Bobby Baker treated them. He’s one of a kind.”

Editor’s Note: Bobby Baker passed away June 1, just as this edition of North Shore Golf went to press.

By Steve Krause

Golf … for the fun of it.

That seems to be the objective of the PGA Junior League, which is making its debut at Gannon Golf Course in Lynn and other local courses this summer. The goal is to get young boys and girls interested in the sheer fun golf provides, according to Gannon head pro David Sibley.

The Lynn municipal course will be in a league with Beverly Golf & Tennis Club, Wenham Country Club, Nahant Golf Club, Hillview Golf Course in North Reading, and Sagamore Spring in Lynnfield.

Most courses in the North Shore Golf magazine readership area field at least one team of 8-to-12 players. Some, like at Tedesco CC in Marblehead, are by invitation-only. The majority are open to any youngster, primarily ages 8 to 13, who would like to participate. Atkinson (N.H.) Resort and Country Club had a whopping 86 junior players in 2017, giving the club its own league.

Mike Higgins, NEPGA executive director, noted that a record number of players have signed up for the junior league for this time of year.
“We are number one in the entire country in PGA Junior League in terms of both the number of kids playing and the number of teams, with more than 200 teams. One, Atkinson, actually won the regionals and advanced to the final in Arizona last year,” said Higgins.

Sibley said that while the PGA is long on events that cater to golf’s competitive nature, it seeks to foster an interest in the game purely as something enjoyable and social.

“The PGA has already recognized the competitive aspect of golf,” Sibley said, “but in order to get youngsters who will want to go out, and maybe not take it as seriously, who are looking for a more fun aspect of their game, this is what the program was designed for.”

And while teaching the sport is certainly central to the PGA Junior League’s efforts, that won’t be the only aspect of the game the kids will learn.

There is no required skill set, except for an interest in the game and some knowledge of the fundamentals.

“I don’t want to say beginners, because there is some competitive aspect to it, but it doesn’t have to be just the kids who are going and looking at playing in high school or college.

“We’re going to have what I call experiences at the club,” he said. “I say ‘experiences’ because there will be some days where I’ll talk to the kids about what it’s like being on the course – the etiquette, such as how to keep play moving, how to conduct themselves and what it’s like to be out on the course with other folks.”

The league hopes to “bring family and friends together around fun, team golf experiences with expert coaching and instruction from PGA and LPGA professionals,” according to a statement by the PGA Junior League.

Toward that end, Sibley said one of the main criteria for clubs hosting these PGA Junior teams is that a registered PGA professional must be on site to teach.

Toby Ahern, head PGA pro at Nahant Golf Club, compares the program to baseball’s Little League. It is competitive but is also “great fun. It’s one of the best programs the PGA runs. We have a full team of 12 and the goal is to learn about the game, play and have fun.”

Ryan McDonald, a North Reading native who is in his first year at Wenham Country Club after 10 years at Northfield CC in central Vermont, is excited about getting the junior program up and running there. “We have 10 players signed up for the league. We will have a lot of fun and the boys and girls will learn about the game of golf. Hopefully, it will start a life-long love of the game.”

Sibley said the league is structured like many other sports leagues. There will be a series of matches in a scramble format, rather than the usual best ball style.

“A scramble is designed to create a little less pressure,” said Sibley. “A scramble format keeps it more fun, with just enough competition, too.” In this format, two golfers tee off and choose one ball they’d prefer to play, both hit from that spot; this continues for the rest of the hole. In best ball, both golfers play his/her ball for the entire round, with the best score for each hole being the one that counts.

Sibley said there is no residency requirement. “We’re taking juniors from Lynn, and also not from Lynn,” he said.

“What we’ll probably do,” he said, “is start out holding practices, and start our schedule in June. We’ll play a league schedule, with the league champions going to a state tournament, and then a regional tournament. Winner of the regional tournament goes to the nationals in Arizona,” he said. “Those are in November, so it might be cold up here but it’s warm down there.” A team from Atkinson Resort and Country Club made it to the nationals last year.

Sibley said there are still four slots open on Gannon’s team. Interested youngsters can phone the pro shop for more information. “I really think,” he said, “that if we build this up enough, we can have at least two teams.”

North Shore Golf editor Bill Brotherton contributed to this story.

CORRECTION:

The summer edition of North Shore Golf magazine contains a story about Sir Nick Faldo visiting Ferncroft CC in August. That will not be happening. In fact it already happened: in 2010. Somehow an old press release found its way into NS Golf’s inbox. We apologize for the error, and hope it didn’t cause problems for the Ferncroft pro shop staff and members.

Sir Nick Faldo will visit Ferncroft Country Club in Middleton on August 24. The 2008 Ryder Cup captain, a fan favorite at last summer’s U.S. Senior Open at Salem Country Club, will conduct a golf clinic and host a cocktail party with a question-and-answer format.
All net proceeds will be donated to the Ferncroft CC Junior Golf Scholarship Program.
Tickets to either the clinic or cocktail party are $100 each. Tickets to both the golf clinic and cocktail party are $150. A limited number of tickets will be available.Tickets may be purchased online at www.ferncroftcc.com/faldo or by calling the pro shop at 978-739-4040 x231.
The golf clinic will take place on the range at 3:30 p.m. and the cocktail party will follow in the club’s recently renovated Jones Room. Complimentary cocktails and heavy hors d’oeuvres will be served at the party.
Head Golf Professional Phil Leiss said, “We are thrilled to have this legend visit Ferncroft CC and the North Shore. Nick Faldo held the number one spot in the Official World Golf Rankings for a total of 98 weeks and won 40 PGA tournaments. It will be a fantastic opportunity to get up-close and personal with this accomplished golfer. We’re trying to keep the atmosphere intimate.”
The Ferncroft CC Junior Golf Scholarship Program seeks to nurture disadvantaged young people ages 8-16 by providing access, instruction and equipment to introduce them to golf.
Since Affinity Management (affinitymanagement.com) purchased the club in 2006, more than $3 million in restorations have been completed. These include renovating and reopening the previously dormant 19th hole restaurant, building a new multi-section golf practice area, performing drainage work on 14 holes, repaving the cart paths and installing a fitness room filled with top-of-the-line equipment.
Ferncroft is known for its Robert Trent Jones Sr.-designed championship golf course that hosted the LPGA Boston Five Classic from 1980-90.

By Anne Marie Tobin

When it comes to hometown heroes, they don’t get any bigger than Winchester native Joe Bellino. Bellino, who lives in Bedford, defied all odds in 1960 when the diminutive halfback midshipman at the Naval Academy won college football’s most prestigious award, the Heisman Trophy.
Bellino stood only 5 feet, 9 inches. But that didn’t stop him from excelling in football, basketball and baseball at Winchester High School, and being recruited by more than 60 colleges for football and nearly as many for baseball, before entering the Naval Academy.
In the 1960 Army-Navy football game he ran for 85 yards, caught two passes, scored a touchdown and returned kickoffs to lead Navy to a 17-12 win. Bellino fumbled at the Navy 17 yard line late in the game. With Army marching in for a likely game-winning touchdown, Bellino intercepted a pass at the goal line and returned it to the 50 to save the day. After the game, Navy publicist John Cox told Bellino that the interception had likely clinched the Heisman. Bellino disagreed, saying instead that the catch saved him from being the game’s goat.
He was named one of 50 greatest Massachusetts athletes of the century in 1999 by Sports Illustrated, joining the likes of Harry Agganis, Tony Conigliaro, Pat Bradley and Francis Ouimet.
He even spent time with President John F. Kennedy.
Bellino played three seasons returning kickoffs for the Boston Patriots following four years of active duty, which included two years on a destroyer in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Bellino, in his early 20s, began a lifelong love of golf, a game which he quickly mastered. He once held memberships at Hillview, Andover and Indian Ridge, eventually settling in at Pleasant Valley.
Married to his high school sweetheart, Ann Tansey, for 56 years, Bellino has two children, son John Bellino, a 1989 Navy graduate who works in intelligence, and daughter Therese Eggerling, who teaches in Cambridge.
Still close to his playing weight of 185 pounds, 80-year-old Bellino works in the auto business for Ohio-based Adesa Corp. and can be found nearly every day working on his game at the military-owned Patriot Golf Club on the grounds of the Veterans’ Administration Center in Bedford.

North Shore Golf: What was your first exposure to golf?
Bellino: When I was 12, I went over to Winchester Country Club to caddy. I had no experience and had never been on a golf course. I got there at 6 a.m., but by 10 I was still in the caddie shack as nobody chose me. I never went back.
But my first real experience was when I was a senior in high school. The star golfer on the team was a kid named John Black. I was a baseball stud, and I got the idea that I could hit a golf ball with a baseball bat longer that he could with a golf club. So a group of us met at a field on a Saturday morning. He puts a ball on a tee and whacks the thing out of sight. I looked at my bat and said, “case closed, I’m not even going to give it a try,” because I knew I couldn’t do it.”

When did you take up the game?
Both of my roommates at the Naval Academy played golf and were always trying to get me to play. I told them they were crazy to waste their time playing golf. A couple of years later, I was home for a two-week vacation before leaving for Japan. My brother, Tony, and cousin, Angelo Amico, came to the house and asked me to play. So we went to Unicorn and Angelo asked me what my handicap was. I didn’t know what that was, so he said, “We’ll play a Nassau with automatic presses off the back side” and he gave me two shots a side. I had no idea what he was talking about. After we finished, he said I lost the front, the back, the overall and the automatic and that I owed him $8, which was a lot in 1963. He asked me what I was doing tomorrow, so we went back and this time he gave me three a side. Well, I lost another $8. I pointed my finger at him and told him he had hoodwinked me and told him, “I will be back.” From that point on, every chance I got for the next two years I devoted to golf until I knew what I was doing.

What’s your lowest handicap and the best round you ever shot?
I got down to a 2-handicap for a few years when I was at Indian Ridge. … My best round was a 68 I shot at Newport Country Club. I don’t remember when, but I can remember the round like it was yesterday.

What was the best part of your game?
I could talk myself into making any shot, so I would say the mental part of the game. That and the short game, as I was always pretty good at chipping and putting. But the most challenging part of golf is to maintain concentration and routine and stay positive. If you think you can’t do something, you won’t.

Do you have any memorable experiences or anecdotes to share from the links?
I’ve birdied the 17th hole at Harbour Town (on Hilton Head Island, SC) every time I have played it and love telling people I’ve played the course 22 times. The first time I played the hole (195-yard par 3), I knocked it stiff and still had a really hard 4-footer, but made it. I knew I could never top that, so after that, I just skipped the hole every time I played the course.

What did it feel like when you heard you won the Heisman?
Well, it wasn’t like it is today, being on TV, with all the fanfare. In my case, honestly, it was a relief. I was in an electrical engineering class about a week after the Army game. I got called out of class and sent to the superintendent’s office, which was never a good thing. So, I thought I was in trouble especially since I was struggling in that class. The office was full of people, the admiral, a couple of sports reporters, our football coach; the admiral read a telegram from the Downtown Athletic Club. As soon as I heard, “Congratulations, midshipman Joseph Bellino…” I knew I won it. But my only thought was I was so glad I wasn’t in trouble, that’s the only thing that went through my mind.

How did you come to meet John F. Kennedy?
One of the reporters in the superintendent’s office that day interviewed me and asked me what was left for me, after winning all the major awards. I said there was another Massachusetts guy who had done pretty well that year, president-elect Kennedy and I would love to meet him. So, the next day the headline of the Washington Post read “Bellino wins Heisman, wants to meet Kennedy.” The day after that I got a telegram from him congratulating me and inviting me and the other Navy players from Massachusetts to his Georgetown house for dinner. He even sent a limo to pick us up.
I also got to meet him the following summer to present him, as our commander-in-chief, with the Class of 1961 yearbook. I was an ensign, and it was an incredible experience, just two guys with Boston accents talking it up in the Oval Office. We talked for a couple of hours. I still treasure the picture I have from that meeting.

Talk about playing for the Patriots. You were drafted, but still had to fulfill your 4-year service commitment.
My active duty was ending in 1965 after being in Japan for two years, and playing football was the furthest thing from my mind. I had submitted by resignation papers and someone in the Redskins organization had a Washington connection, so they contacted me to invite me to training camp. Then, the Patriots found out and offered me a contract, so I flew home, signed the contract and was at training camp in Andover the next day and then played in an exhibition game against the Jets and Joe Namath, who was a rookie, the day after that. One day I was in the Navy, then 72 hours later I’m in a Patriots uniform playing professional football, wondering what I am doing here. But I did pretty well, caught a pass and returned kickoffs, but the next day I stepped in a hole and broke my ankle, so I was done that year. The next year, I snapped a hamstring, but after the third year I was in good shape and got picked up by the Cincinnati Bengals in the expansion draft. In those days, if you played pro, you had to have two jobs, and I started a family and business and I couldn’t do that from Cincinnati, so I packed it in.

You come from a large family, four brothers and a sister. What was their reaction when they found out their brother was voted the best collegiate football player in America?
My older brother Sam was sitting at the kitchen table. Back then, your older brothers and high school athletes were your heroes, so Sam was my idol. He was a football star at Winchester and played at Wentworth and he always pushed me. If I scored three touchdowns, he would tell me I should have scored four, or I should have made that interception or that pass I should have had. I could never satisfy him, but I knew it was for my benefit. So I put the trophy down on the table, proud as a peacock. He read the inscription, that it was for the best player in the country, and he said, “In this family, you’re not even Top 3.” He said he was better than me, my brother Tony was No. 2 and my sister Betty was No. 3 because, even though she didn’t play, if she did, she still would have been a better player than me. I’ll never forget it.

Golf’s ‘cool’ quotient intensifies for rock ‘n’ rollers
By Jim Sullivan
I once played a round of golf with a member of a world-famous rock band at Brookline’s Robert T. Lynch Municipal Golf Course. There was one stipulation: That I not write about us doing so.
I have been a rock writer for years, but at the time, around 2000, I was also penning the Boston Globe’s celeb-centered Names & Faces column, and, yeah, it would have been an item. But I agreed and understood. It wasn’t about exposing deficiencies in his game; it was about perception of the game itself.
Rock stars: Cool. Golf: Uncool.
After all, the song doesn’t run “Sex and golf and rock ‘n’ roll!”
This cool/uncool perception has shifted over the years. There’s a long list of public rocker/golfers: Huey Lewis, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea, Motley Crue’s Tommy Lee, Eddie Van Halen, Justin Timberlake, Bob Seger, Belinda Carlisle, Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine, Roger Waters, Kid Rock, Alice in Chains’ Jerry Cantrell, Mick Fleetwood, Stephen Stills, Sammy Hagar, Iggy Pop and, of course, Alice Cooper, who’s been at it longer than anyone.
I started playing at 12, nearly a half-century from where I am now, unconcerned about any cool or uncool aspect. It was something to do. I even understood, albeit abstractly, what the oldtimers were telling me: Golf was a sport you could play throughout your life.
Even if I wasn’t concerned about cool, Alice Cooper’s enthusiasm for the game headed off any potential jabs. If a rocker who, on stage, chopped the heads off baby dolls, rolled around in a straitjacket and was guillotined every night, could play this genteel, pastoral game, so could I. Alice was loud and he was proud – about being a rocker and being a golfer.
I’ve interviewed Cooper a few times and we always talk golf, at least a little bit, usually to start. I’ll ask where his handicap is (usually around 4) and he’ll ask how I’m doing (bogey golf, give or take.). I’ll moan about never being as good as he is and he’ll say something like, “Chin-up, Jim, if you played as often as I do, you’d be as good as I am.”
If he’s not on tour, Cooper will play six days a week near his Phoenix home. If he’s on tour, he’ll play at every U.S. tour stop and in Europe about twice a week. You often see him on TV in those celebrity pro-am tournaments.
Cooper, well-known for battling the bottle early in his career, admits golf was (and is) key to his recovery in his “Alice Cooper: Golf Monster – A Rock ’n’ Roller’s 12 Steps To Becoming a Golf Addict.”
“Ask anybody who’s ever been addicted to anything,” Cooper told me. “When they get into golf, it’s the same addiction. It’s like you hit a great shot and you will hit ten bad shots to hit one more good shot. It’s almost like that with any drug addiction. It’s very, very similar. But it’s not going to kill you.”
I remember reading about Iggy Pop, too, in a Creem magazine story in the ’70s. Iggy indulged in a lot of drugs back then and said when he wanted to clean up he’d visit his parents in Florida and golf. He lives in Palmetto Bay, Florida, now and my guess is golf access is a factor.
I think for many of us – certainly for these rockers and certainly for my late-night/concert-going/writing self – one of the main appeals golf has is that it has nothing to do with the rest of our lives. It’s four-and-a-half (or more) hours away from all that. It’s a different (slower) pace; it requires a different (sharply honed) skill set, one not easily mastered. And, it’s a great equalizer – the No. 1 guy in your foursome is the ace-of-the-day, not the guy who has achieved the most measure of fame in other walks of life.
Hugo Burnham, former drummer for the post-punk band Gang of Four, was 8 and growing up in Kent, England, when he first took to the links. He played with his grandfather. But he didn’t really didn’t take up the game until the band folded in 1983 and Burnham moved permanently to the United States. He was transitioning into the job of an A&R man, procuring talent for record companies.
Burnham, a longtime Gloucester resident, says the annual March industry confab South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, was what re-ignited his interest. “The Austin airport was overwhelmed with golf bags from all over the country on early-arrival Tuesday, as the tournament always kicked off early Wednesday mornings. It was a blast, with a fair amount of drinking and a lot of cigar-smoking. And prizes! And Alice Cooper! And Willie Nelson!”
“I embraced and loved playing golf during those years,” he added. “There was absolutely nothing un-cool about it.”
Alas, Burnham added, “When I moved back East and ended my A&R days, I sort of tailed off. A baby in the house and starting a new life as a college professor rather got in the way. I still have my clubs, and I still want to get out and play again. What did I shoot? Not telling. OK, not very well. But it was glorious when it went long and straight, and it was always a blast.”
I golf regularly with Dave Herlihy, now a lawyer and music industry professor at Northeastern University. He was also the singer-songwriter/guitarist for Boston-based alternative rock band O Positive.

“I started playing golf as a kid and was on the high school team,” Herlihy said. “And in O Positive, I’d golf during the day and rock out at night.”

“I was never embarrassed by golf,” Herlihy added “I never hid the fact that I played, but didn’t think it was cool either, I just liked it and didn’t give a damn what anyone thought about it. I did kind of chafe at the country club angle though, the exclusionary, privileged dimension. But golf as golf, I love.”
Oedipus, the program director for Boston’s long-running, top-rated (but now defunct) rock radio station WBCN, is another frequent golf partner. “My father loved golf, but we were too poor to play,” he said. “We watched on the TV together. I would sneak onto a public 9-hole to putt, but did not take up the game until the late-’70s when a friend bought me a used lefty set. Problem, as always, was finding the time to play.
“Golf is a mini-vacation. Golf, in some form, has always been part of my life. I never cared what people thought. Remember, I was the guy who was playing all of this noise on the radio that people hated before it became popular. I was the guy who had colored hair long before it was de jour. I … programmed a radio station that was the internet before the internet. We defined cool.”
Oedipus recalls a round with members of AC/DC about 30 years ago at Wayland Country Club. Guitarist Malcolm Young, who died in November, and bassist Cliff Williams traveled with their own clubs, he said, “We talked music, but mostly golf. We were hackers and we three had a jolly afternoon on the links.”
Oedipus said the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson told him “Golf is lame.” To that, Oedipus replied, “Sorry that you do not understand the personal challenges and elations as well as the comradery that golf offers.’’
Four years ago, I interviewed Huey Lewis about music for a half-hour. Wrapping up, I asked about his game. For 15 minutes or so, we were just two golfers, swapping stories.

Lewis said he no longer golfed on concert days. Fair enough, I thought. That showed discipline and commitment to his work. But backstage after a concert in Boston he admitted he’d lied. He’d played Myopia Hunt Club in South Hamilton earlier that day. And, he volunteered, he’d played poorly, shooting 82.
That evening, I came bearing a gift, a special golf ball that lit up – through the miracle of LEDs – when you struck it, so, in theory, you could find it in the dusk or rough or anywhere. Problem was, it felt like a rock to hit it and it didn’t exactly fly off the club.
But, Huey said “We need these kinds of balls at our age.”
He was right: We do. If only they felt and flew like a Titleist Pro V1.

Jim Sullivan covered pop music and culture for the Boston Globe for 26 years. He tries to play golf once or twice a week in-season. He currently writes for WBUR’s ARTery, the Cape Cod Times and a host of other outlets.

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