Who Introduced You To The Game & What, If Any, Is Your Lasting Memory?

As with my first thread here, I've been a lot more reflective over the last year than I was in the first 51(It's probably that mortality sh!t;) ). Hopefully this thread won't be as polarizing as the first, lol. So I was thinking back to when my Grandmother gave me one of her old cut down Staff Dynapower 9i's in 1967, when I was 7yo.

That's it-

She said that if I still had interest in a year, she would give me another club and a putter.

So, I'm curious as to how most of you picked up the game, and who, if anyone was influential in your introduction, and what lasting memories, lessons or thoughts you took away from your experience.

Have a good one:)

Fairways & Greens My Friends,

Richard

My Grandfather introduced me to the game.

My lasting memory is the first birdie i had with him when i was like 7 years old. He would tell me i did good and what i did bad so i could learn from it.

I do miss playing golf with him.

A couple of friends of mine, just last year about this same time. The lasting memory is the first time I tried to hit a golf ball---"What the hell did I get myself into??". I've been addicted ever since.

My grandfather introduced me. After he retired from the USPS he went to the Golf Works and Mitchell club building schools. He is an awful player, but he is highly knowledgeable, and has an amazing love for the game. I need to call him and thank him.

I started caddying at The Country Club in Brookline when I was 12. Started "playing" there then.

Wish I could have the opportunity to play there again.

My father introduced me to the game when I was in grade school. I got to walk 9 with him and his friends. I would get to putt when they got to the green. My father (and his friends) weren't/aren't very good golfers. They don't keep score, but if they did they would probably shoot 120s. However, I still have fond memories of treking all over the course with them.

After that I didn't play for another 22 years. The second time I picked up the game it was right after the birth of my son. I had paternity leave and I would go to the range when my wife and son napped during the day. Both times have great memories attached to them.

2008 - I owned a business in Sedona, AZ. I was 53 years old. My banker called one day and said let's go play some golf this Friday, his treat. Not wanting to turn down the offer from "my banker" I said "sounds good". You guessed it, I'd never played golf before. My wife and I immediately jumped in the car and drove 2 hours to Pheonix, AZ to a Dick's Sporting Goods and I bought a set of Slazenger golf clubs right out of a box. Included driver, 3 wood, 4-sw, putter and the bag (whole set for $149). Got some shoes, balls, tees and 12 wiffle balls (figured I could learn in the backyard over the next 2-3 days).

Long story short, I was hooked.

My husband introduced me to golf. He played fairly often & wanted to play more when he retired. For years he said he wished I'd take up the game. I'd always said I wanted to learn the game but didn't have the time till I was in my early 50's. He retired about then & took me to the practice range with him one day. He gave me a 7-iron & some basic instructions & I hit away. I was hooked, and he told me I certainly seemed to have a very natural swing & I might really learn to like golf. I did, got hooked immediately & went berserk. Since then, he's quit playing golf (just lost interest) and I've become obsessed. His favorite saying is "Be very careful what you wish for". If I didn't have golf I'd probably have to find a part-time job. I'd give anything if I'd been introduced to golf when I was a teen...but golf for girls was pretty much unheard of then.

I was introduced during the 1996 U.S. Amateur. I went over to a friend's house and he had it on and some dude with a funny animal nickname was playing to win his third straight title. If my memory serves correctly, I sat there without moving for the entire round, even while his mom (rather annoyed) cooked dinner for their family. That was the day I realized golf was freakin cool.

Great topic.
My dad got me started playing golf. While we still get a change to play together occasionally, when we were both younger we would go back to his hometown and qualify for a match play tournament (they have qualifying rounds all week, leading up to a Sat/Sunday 8 flight (16 players per flight) match play weekend.

The qualifying round is ALWAYS the "toughest" round of the year. We were both struggling a bit, against our expectations, and coming down the home stretch of final 9. He walks over and says something to the effect of " Son, I know we both aren't playing as well as we'd like, but you know what....I could think of nothing better than walking down this fairway on a course I grew up playing on and being able to walk side-by-side with you, finish strong! and let's go have a beer when we are done".

It's been a few years now since we went back to play this tournament together as I've moved further way and have young kids, etc....but we always talk about "one last time, before he's unable".....sh%t....maybe this year we will do it one more time.

My father introduced me in grade 5 with my sis with lessons. Loved it, then played a couple years but it took a back seat to competitive soccer until my grade 12 yr. Sad that he gave it up a couple years ago.

[quote name='dkbunk' timestamp='1391137603' post='8569176']
we always talk about "one last time, before he's unable".....sh%t....maybe this year we will do it one more time.
[/quote]Great Story!!

Don't say maybe-

Make it happen.

Like Ben said, ya only get to walk these fairways once, and there are no mulligans.

And please, let me know how you guys do

Have a great season


Fairways & Greens My Friend,
Richard

When I was about 11 I had a neighbor (samish age) whose father had a club sitting in the garage but didn't play. One summer we started hitting balls around a huge school field with it. The "holes" were the baseball backstops, the huge metal doors of the gymnasium and the dirt surrounding a tree. We used to throw the club back and forth across the field.

At the end of the summer, my brother, my friend and I decided to go play real golf at a course. We shown up, the three of us (11 and 12 years old) with one wood, two irons and a putter between us! Obviously that didn't work for the dude at the counter, so we were forced to rent clubs. I seem to recall that we didn't have enough money, but he gave them to us anyway. Off we went. Had no clue what we were doing. I remember dumping the rental bag in front of the 18th green to retrieve a ball that I had dropped into the bag and getting yelled at from the fairway! Good times! We were hooked after that. I saved up my moolah over the winter and bought a cheap set of sticks and a season pass, as did my brother.

My father introduced me to the game when I was 6. The day he let me use his ping woods for junior golf. Thought I was king for a day.

[quote name='Forged4ever1' timestamp='1391142527' post='8569704']
[quote name='dkbunk' timestamp='1391137603' post='8569176']
we always talk about "one last time, before he's unable".....sh%t....maybe this year we will do it one more time.
[/quote]Great Story!!

Don't say maybe-

Make it happen.

Like Ben said, ya only get to walk these fairways once, and there are no mulligans.

And please, let me know how you guys do

Have a great season


Fairways & Greens My Friend,
Richard
[/quote]

Yes. You are right. Need to make it happen.. Wouldn't even matter what we shoot obviously! Memories last a lifetime and this stupid game of golf is so much a part of our friendship as father/son over the years it is difficult to explain. But I'm sure many people here on wrx would understand.

My grandfather was the one that got me into golf. I got my first set of clubs at 6 years of old and attended a golf camp at my home course the following year. I attended that camp every summer until I was 13. From then on is when my game really started to develop. I would just play with him or my dad two to three times a week during the summer.

Probably one of the best lasting memories I have of golfing with him is when I broke 100 for the first time.

My grandfather let use his persimmon driver in his backyard when I was really young. I hit a few dribblers that went maybe 20 yds then it happened... I hit one pure and was hooked.

My biggest regret was not telling my grandfather how much I loved the game in middle school as he probably would have helped me get good enough to play in high school.

16 years ago I broke my knee badly during a tennis tournament and the surgeon told me “no more stop-and-god-sports” after the 3rd surgery.

So I was looking for an alternative and a friend took me to a range near by. Two hours later I booked a week of vacation in the south of France to learn it: 8 am to 2 pm golf lessons, the afternoon on the beach, in the evening hitting balls again.

The pro I had there was a 2-time French amateur champion. His dad was a pro, so was his grandpa. He didn’t teach me the one and only swing according to his concept but helped me to evolve and refine what was already there due to tennis (and icehockey).
And he always told me that the most important thing for a proper swing is tempo tempo tempo.

So this pro really introduced me into golf, the most fascination leisure activity and I today I only regret that I did not start with golf earlier.

My dad introduced me to the game. Ha but how he did it is what was great. When I was still in diapers he would occasionally have to baby sit me. He would bring me to the course when he did. We would go to the range and he would hit balls while I played in the sand. He would then go pick them up and let me hit a shag bag full. He would sit on a towel and put the ball on a tee for me to hit with my cut down hogan persimmon 5 wood. I was probably around 2 and could move it out there about 290 or so with my tipped X flex shaft....wait do I have to tell my real distances for golfwrx?? Seriously, I would pound that 5 wood about 30 yards or so, never whiffed or topped a shot so I was hooked.

I dont have many on course memories that really stand out. I remember my first birdie, eagle, par, round under par, round in the 60s, wins, chokes and things like that. My best memories will always be just sitting around having a beer with my dad and shooting the breeze about our rounds for the day.

My dad introduced my brother and I. He was a fan, but never really played. Lots of what my brother and I learned are pretty much from learning by ourselves. Never really a study of any one golfer or swing. My swing is my own.

My lasting memory has to be a nice May Sunday morning in 1983. I was 14 and my brother (17yo), a friend of his and I are on the course. The old carts had the 'side-load' holders with like a 4" shelf on the back, and that was my seat as my brother and his friend had the front seats.

I'm sitting on the back, heading from the green on 8 to the tee on 9 which is down a slight hill. Morning dew was still on the lee side (it was almost all grass) and my brother says "hey, watch this" and starts heading down the hill, and turns the cart sideways 1/2 way down. We're sliding sideways and when we get to the bottom, the cart just 'stops'. Well, I didn't have the best grip and I get thrown from the cart. I brace my fall with my left arm and ... proceed to have it broken upon landing.

So here we are, on the 9th hole, I'm in wicked pain. We have to now head back to the clubhouse (which the tee of the 9th hole is exactly the farthest from) and bouncing around, holding my arm as still as possible, yeah, I was crying.

Now, he's got to go inside (I remained outside howling), ask for a phone, and call my mom and tell her to pick me up. She was in the bathtub soaking. "Can't it wait?" "Ummm, no. We think somethings broken." "****". So, she picks me up in like 10 min, brings me to the rescue station (where my dad was that morning, he was a voluenteer) and they bring me to the hospital for a cast. Yep. It was broken.

So, here we have someone (me) that broke their arm playing golf.

Oh, did I tell you it was Mothers Day? Because it was. To this day my mother believes my brother hit me with a club and no matter what, she won't believe what my brother and I say to the contrary.

--kC

I guess you could say my uncle introduced me to the game when I was twelve, but it was my desire to go play with my Dad, uncle and grandfather that really got me interested. I am left handed, they were all right handed so I never had clubs to play. Plus, I have a physical disability that isn't really good for trying to play golf so I was never taken seriously, by my father of all people, when I wanted to play. My uncle had an old set of left handed hickory sticks that he snuck my way one day and said 'see what you can do'. That's pretty much where it all started.

Lasting memory....when I finally beat all three of them in a round we played together a few years later.

Like many here, my grandfather introduced me to the game when I was a child. He use to keep clubs in his garage for all the grand kids to play with and would cut a hole in his back yard for us. I remember going to my grandparents' house in the summer when I was out of school and looking for him as soon as I arrived each day. My grandmother always said the same thing: "he's playing golf this morning, he should be home by 10am." He was the first person on the course every morning and would play in around 3 hours.

I really didn't start "playing" the game until my late 20s. I was a rock musician for most of my life and music was my only priority. Once I'd had enough of playing in bars and sleeping in flea bag motels, I sold most of my music equipment and turned my focus and finances to golf. Thanks Grandpa, I don't know where I would be without golf in my life.

I didn't grow up in a golfing home, and "my people" weren't allowed into the local country club back then, so I played lots of other sports and pooh-poohed golf. When I was 29, a friend was getting married at what was essentially a private golf resort (11 holes, IIRC) owned by several families outside of Pittsburgh. Another friend, who was a golfer, convinced me to go out on the course with him and hit a few balls. At a little par 3, he put a seven iron in my hand, showed me a grip, and told me to swing at the ball like a hockey puck. Needless to say, I whiffed. I tried again and hit it flush. It flew maybe 130 yards and rolled to within a few feet of the pin. What I remember most is the feel of that perfect impact. For whatever reason, it was like my first hit of crack. I was hooked. Been searching for that impact ever since.

Older brother used to take me out to "chop it around" as he used to say.

My lasting memory is actually seeing a hole at Claremont Country Club in Oakland, CA, that had been a scene in a recurring deja-vu I have had since childhood. A rough description is a teeing ground with tall shaved hedges and green open space in the distance.

It was weird when I saw it. I remember saying to myself, "That's the scene."

Can't explain it, but I know when I visualize it a peaceful feeling comes over me.

I had a wonderful uncle. Why? I never knew but he had no children. Loved sports so since I played I guess I became his favorite nephew. He played with a group of WWII guys. So a son of one of his buddies and I would tag along from time to time, pretend to caddy, listen to war stories and wait for an invite to the 19th hole. They'd have a few and we would drink all the soda we could, eat peanuts and listen to their stories.
I guess I was 12 or 13 and one day out of nowhere my uncle says, " you want to learn how this game is played or are you just going to fool around." I must have mumbled something like yes. Next thing I know he takes me in the pro shop, introduces me to the pro and says, "here Harry, see what you can do with him." I say, "well, I don't have any clubs." Now my uncle was a real Hogan fan. He got new irons every two or three years. Next thing I know there is an old set of Hogans, a canvass bag and some 3 wood I don't remember.
I later played football and baseball in high school and baseball in college. I spent all my 'free time' playing golf. When I got out of college my uncle was getting older, did not seem to hit it as far as I remembered, but he still loved to play.
We had some great times together.
There are three sets of Hogans on the wall in the rec room and every time I walk past or look at them I think about that man and what he meant to me. Not just golf!
Thanks for asking.

I've answered this before here it is again:

About 1972 I somehow got interested in golf by watching it on tv. Nobody in my family played so it was up to me. No instruction, no internet, and nobody I knew played so I bought some crappy used clubs from an ad in the newspaper. I went to the local course and hit the range. You can imagine what that looked like. After a few weeks of hard work and sweat it was going nowhere and I was about to give up on the idea completely.

An older man probably in his 70's worked at the course part time walks over to me and says, Hey kid, you wanna learn to play this game? Yes I do I said. Be here tomarrow at 7. Are we going out onto the course? Yes we are. How much does it cost? You don't worry about that, you just be here, and he walks away. The next morning im at the course with my clubs and no money to pay a green fee. He shows up and gets a cart, Put your clubs on here, I aint got all day. Off we go to the middle of the back 9. Nobody around, just him and I.

This guy was a player to be sure. Age had robbed him of most of his distance but every shot was lazer straight. Par 4 he would hit driver, next shot short of the green and pitch to the green and putt for par. Always made a 4 or 5. You get the idea. Of couse im young and trying to hit the ball far and of course its slicing into the next county. He starts cussing and raising hell with me about swinging too hard. And so it goes until we get back to the shop. Be here same time in the morning. Ok I say.

We did this 2 or 3 times a week all summer long. People would say to me, how can you play golf with that guy? Hes short tempered and mean. I knew better, Yes he was short tempered and grumpy and cussed a lot but I also knew he was willing to teach this kid he didn't know how to play the game properly. He taught me the rules, how to conduct myself on the course and how to properly hold the club and make a swing. At the end of the summer I was no Tiger Woods but I had leaned enough to have the confidence to head out on the course and enjoy a round of golf.

Winter came and the course closed. Finally spring came and I was excited to find my friend and continue our partnership. The course opens so I head over the course. I walk in and ask if he is around or when he worked again. The man in the shop told he had passed away over the winter. That hit me pretty hard. I didn't know him that long but I missed him just the same. 40 years later I still think about the guy who introduced me to game all those years ago.

My dad introduced me. At the time (6th grade I think) I wasn't too terribly interested, but I do recall hitting both lefty and righty sticks because I'm left handed but my right is stronger/ throwing arm. Always wondered what my game would be like if I had chosen the lefty stick. I used his old Cally x-12's and rag tag woods for my first set.

My hole in one was on my brother's birthday, PW 136 yards at my high school home course. Later in the season my dad got his own hole in one, and bragged that his was more badass cause it was a 180 yard hole. With the same wedge a few years later I flew about the same yardage in for a par 4 eagle on a very windy day during a terrible round of golf. In both cases no one in the group was aware what happened till we looked in the cup.

My father introduced me to the game around the time tiger came on tour and naturally, he became my favorite golfer as I have grown up. I never had a huge interest as a kid and I would only play 3-5 times a year or whenever dad was paying. I have always had a pretty natural swing and can hit driver a decent way. I really developed a fascination with the game in early 2010 and I have been a constant work in progress ever since. I wish I still had a video of my swing from 4 years ago so I could compare it to how far I've come haha. My maiden goal when I began taking my game seriously was to beat my dad every time I get the chance to play with him, only problem is he lives 1000 miles away so the opportunities are few and far between. I enjoy those rounds the most and I think he does too even if we both play like crap. Being able to share things that I have learned from game with him is also really cool.

I was 10 or 11 one summer, a new kid moved into out neighbourhood, Sean Denton. His Dad played and Sean had a family membership at the Peterborough Golf and Country club. Two holes were sort of off the course and 163 yard par 3 and a dogleg par five that came back the other way. Sean and I played them several times with a 6 iron (still my favourite club).

I started caddying the next year and got clubs for christmas, my dad insisted I get ladies clubs(embarrasing). I was hooked and joined a local executive club. I got my dad into it the year I was in grade 8 starting a 40 year love affair for him, to this day I have never met a more hooked terrible golfer than my Dad. He finally gave the game up a few years ago in his 80's.

I am going on 51 and still love it.

Summer of 1994....as a young immigrant to the beautiful USA. This game was a foundation to my successful life in this country. With my Kmart sets, I learnt about determination, perseverance, the will to survive, and the ability to build lasting relationships across skin colors.

As a self-taught, my swing was not aesthetic, but was very efficient....that only fueled my passion.

Now, I have passed the baton to my 5 and 3 year old boys.... only in America