The fourth house back towards the tee from the green left of the fairway on the 10th at Seawane on Long Island. It was the house I grew up in, and it offered a box seat for watching my parents' friends and friends' parents go deliciously ballistic with every flub and foozle as they streamed by. Needing to make sense of any endeavor that could turn the neighborhood authority figures into such screaming idiots, I grabbed some old hickories my father had stowed in the attic, cut a hole in the chain-link fence between our backyard and the fairway, and snuck on after the last group came through in the gloaming of a summer eve. I was 11.
Some 40 years later, I still haven't figured it out.
Still, a chain-link fence with barbed wire atop it as the boundary line -- I did a good job of camouflaging the hole I cut -- meant I never had to look far when I needed a golf ball. A few would find their way into the flower beds most every weekend. When I was 15, I finally got caught by one of the assistant pros -- he graciously let me put out on the 11th after quietly ambushing me -- who then took me in to see his boss. The head pro -- and I can't for the life of me come up with his name -- gave me the option of reform school or caddying. I figured out I wasn't really a candidate for reform school, so I asked why I'd possibly want to schlep golf bags when I could be playing baseball in the schoolyard down the street. He ticked off an appealing trinity: I could make some cash, he'd give me occasional pointers, and I could play the course free on Monday.
I caddied whenever I could until I went off to college and my parents moved from the community. That was in 1968. I've never seen the course since, but the house is still there, and I trust several generations have followed me through that hole and into golf's wonderland...
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