I miss my golf clubs | Bob Shryock

Anyone interested in a used set of lefthanded clubs? I can't use them anymore

Bob ShryockTimes file photo 

Because of my illness, I've had to adjust my lifestyle rather dramatically. Unfortunately, that includes giving up the game of golf, which I've played, with some success, since I was nine years old way back in 1947.  Anyone interested in a used set of lefthanded clubs?

When I worked as a starter at Pitman Golf Course, for a period of 17 years, I witnessed on the first tee a number of players who struck the ball convincingly despite similar struggles with tremors. I chatted with several who encouraged me to join them. But pride prevailed and I sidelined myself, ostensibly for good, rather than risk falling head-first into the turf. Today, off the golf course, my greatest fear is injuring myself permanently via a fall. Balance is the issue.

At age nine, I began playing golf using just one club, a straight blade wooden shafted putter, for every shot, including drives. I didn't get a ball airborne for two years. But I hit "em straight.

When I was 11, and my parents bought me my first set of clubs  (5, 7 and 9-iron, driver and 3-wood, plus the wooden putter), I progressed sufficiently that I was recruited to play in an exhibition with teen stars Ted McKenzie, the pro's son, Camp Hill hotshot Dick Burgoon, and close friend Bill Weagly. I embarrassed myself by completely whiffing my first drive, to the muffled groans of the gallery, then made amends by holing a 7-iron from the fairway on No. 18 for a wacky bogey-five. I didn't break 100.

From age 11 to college, I played the best golf of my life, at one point lowering my handicap to 3 and gaining a reputation as a torrid putter with a  solid short game. I also was known for long iron shots. I tried out for the golf team at Gettysburg College when former NBA star Bob Davies was coach. He was flabbergasted when I knocked a 7-iron shot through a third story dormitory window while practicing. By the way, I didn't make the team but had to pay for the window.

Work won out over golf when I became a sportswriter in Binghamton, N.Y. I was leading the pack in the Evening Press staff tournament after 15 holes when my boss, John Fox, told me to cover the conclusion of the Broome County Open at another course. Next year I played in the BC and finished dead last, failing to break 90.

When rising star Arnold Palmer gave an exhibition at Binghamton Country Club, I covered the event and got to play one hole with the king. He prevailed with a  par to my bogey.

In 1968 Dr. Dominic Carlino, president of the new Gloucester County Chapter of the American Heart Association, asked me to be director of the county's first AHA tournament. Because my dad died of a heart attack earlier that year, I agreed and even played, winning the event in sneakers with a 73 at the old Tall PInes; it was one of the best competitive rounds of my life.

After that, my game slowly, but surely, was in tatters. I played less and more poorly than at any stage in memory. And my temper didn't help. The pitching wedge that I flipped into the tree on No. 2 at the old Woodbury Country Club may still be there.

Nonetheless, golf still was important to me. I was a semi-frequent player at Pine Valley, the world's No. 1 rated course located in Clementon, with the late, great Cy Eastlack my primary sponsor. Of the 15 or 20 rounds I played there, two are in my memory bank. One, I nearly holed a three-iron shot from 220 yards downhill on the difficult  par-4 13th, settling for a birdie. And two, I messed up my last round at PV by twisting my ankle in a hole in the rough on the 17th. I was transported  by cart to the clubhouse to await the others in my foursome, guzzling two PV transfusions and winding up on crutches.

And through the 1990s I was recruited by Crossroads Travel's Shirley Bierbrunner to serve as  host of numerous trips to golf resorts I'd have never otherwise visited, from Dorado Beach in Puerto Rico to Sawgrass in Jacksonville to the Blue Monster at Doral, and a dozen or more others. That was sweet duty.

Meanwhile, I haven't played in more than six years with no plans to resume the game I love.

So it's doubtful I'll ever record the hole-in-one I've never had unless through divine intervention.

It's such a fickle game. I  miss the torture tremendously.