Golf History 101
Within the pages, you'll find out how the PGA Tour evolved from 1929 to its' current status. You'll learn about the golfers and celebrities, their contribution to the evolution of the tour, and the great game we all love.
* Walter Hagen - he was instrumental in making the game what it is today.
* Marion Hollins - she was responsible for hiring Alister MacKenzie to design Cypress Point and Pasatiempo Golf Club. Ms. Hollins was ultimately the reason Bobby Jones hired MacKenzie to design Augusta National Golf Club. She is one of the only known female golf course developers in golf history.
* Babe Ruth - The Big Fella was the first celebrity golfer.
* Joe Kirkwood, Sr. - a trick shot artist who, along with Walter Hagen & Gene Sarazen, brought golf to the world.
* Babe Didrikson Zaharias - an American athlete who excelled in golf, basketball, baseball, and track. She is the only track and field athlete, male or female, to win individual Olympic medals in running, throwing, and jumping events. In 1932. She became the first woman to play against men in a PGA tournament.
* MacDonald Smith - the swing every great player in his era studied.
* Ernest Jones - he believed in swinging the clubhead with the hands and fingers and feeling the swing therein.
* Ben Hogan - “He had the intangible assets—the spiritual.”
* Althea Gibson - broke the color barrier in tennis as well as golf.
* Bing Crosby - one of only a few players to have made a hole-in-one on the 16th at Cypress Point.
* Dinah Shore - she became the first woman to play in PGA TOUR pro-ams.
* Charles Schulz - creator of the comic strip Peanuts. Take his test and see how you do.
* George S. May - considered by many as the Branch Rickey/Bill Veeck of golf.
You'll learn about the golfers - both African Americans and Causacian - and celebrities who helped evolve the tour to what it is today.
More About From the Inside Out
It is an instructional manual covering the fundamentals of the golf swing, the short game, putting, and routine development. The mental game - right brain vs. left brain thinking - concentration in its purest form and the temperament needed to be successful at golf. It is also a historical look at the greats and not-so-greats of the game - circa 1920 to the Tiger Woods era.
Included are notes taken from the best instructors in Northern California (circa 1975-2022) and formatted as a chapter - Lessons from the 6 Under Par Club - that influenced my development as a student of the game. As a player? Flashes of brilliance, playing to a single-digit index from 1968 to now…hovering around or below scratch when playing four to five times per week. Highlights included qualifying for the 1971 US Public Links Championship, the 1975 US Amateur Championship, and advancing into the regional qualifying tournament for the 1976 US Open. Arnold Palmer would say I played in a major championship. Most importantly, a caddy’s view from inside the ropes. . . and a look at the world of golf from the inside out.
Any player - no matter the skill level - hitting a golf ball does so in three steps:
* Sets up to the ball
* Swings at the ball
* Creates an impact
This sets up this framework . . .
I. Setup
II. Swing
III. Impact
Within those Roman numerals are eight fundamentals, obtained from Ben Hogan’s book, Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf. Each of the aforementioned eight fundamentals is supported by quotes from the masters of the game:
Walter Hagen, Bobby Jones, Gene Sarazen, Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan, Sam Snead,
Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and many, many other great players.
From the Inside Out also includes quotes from some of golf’s legendary instructors:
Percy Boomer, Jack Burke, Sr., Alex Morrison, Bill Mehlhorn, Olin Dutra, Henry Picard,
Claude Harmon, Jackie Burke, Jr., Eddie Merrins, Lucious Bateman, John Geertsen, Sr.,
a U.S./British/Canadian Amateur Champion, a number of PGA Tour winners, and a multitude of other great instructors.