"The best non-professional I ever knew who could get out of a car, not hit practice balls and play a great round on a course he never saw before, in tournament play, was Terry McBride."
Pat:
About that you're not just whistling Dixie. I saw one of the oddest things from Terry McBride I've about ever seen in my years in golf.
I believe I once posted this on Golfclubatlas.com years ago but I'll post it again because it's pretty representative of what you just said about him.
This goes back quite a few years now but one time we were playing a practice round for the Coleman at Seminole (I think it was the first year).
On the really long 8th (from the tips and maybe into a bit of a breeze) we're all standing on the tee with 3 woods in our hand and Terry asks his caddy what he should hit (I don't know why he even bothered to ask because he hadn't asked much of anything of him up to that point and Terry did belong to Seminole and probably knew his own game on that course a lot better than his caddie did);
Anyway, the caddie says; "Hit the 4 wood".
Maybe Terry wasn't really listening because he pulls out a 4 iron and flies the ball with a normal trajetory right into the middle of the green from the tips.
You know Terry doesn't take very long to hit a golf ball and when the rest of us saw him take out that 4 iron we all looked at each other silently in surprise. I looked over at Terry's caddie and I could see him looking surprised too and looking like he wanted to stop Terry but he just hit it pretty fast.
That shot effectively played like about 230-235 and this was a good 15-16 years ago. We were all so stunned no one said much for awhile except walking off the tee someone said; "Terry I think your caddy told you to hit a 4 wood" and Terry just said; "Oh, I thought he said 4 iron".
There was a lot of "Nu, NU, Nu, Nu" to that shot I can tell you. But that's just Terry McBride, as you said. The guy has fast hands and wrists, phenomenal hand to eye coordination and he is strong. But still, flying a 4 iron all the way into the middle of that green back then from the tips really shouldn't have happened but it did. I guess it was just because it was Terry McBride!
By the way, as I recall, it was even odder since I don't believe the rest of us even reached the middle of that green with some pretty good 3 woods!