Chapter 9
Quickie Jeffee and Celebrities
I was impressed when I read Mark Twain's autobiography because I honestly don't think Mark Twain spent any day of without somebody who was rich famous, important or known virtually to everybody. And reading Mark Twain's autobiography, I think he would be astounded that there are actually more pages of footnotes, unbelievable references, the trivia about his writing than pages of the actual autobiography itself that's amazing. Aren't you glad I'm not burdening you with all sorts of footnotes, trivia about how the hell I wrote this? I sure am. I'm more of the ordinary cloth so I can't populate my autobiography with tons of references to world famous people but I will tell you of the few instances where I ever did rub shoulders with the VIPs of the world.
One day I was on the driving range of I believe that the Sands Golf Course in Las Vegas and who do I see 3 or 4 tee boxes down for me but Jerry Lewis, yes that Jerry Lewis, the guy who does the telethons every September. I’m talking about The Jerry Lewis who used to make very funny movies with Dean Martin and then went off on a fabulous solo career. I could see Jerry lived a little different life than I did because I'm down there by myself with a bucket of balls and when I wanted to hit a ball I would reach down to the bucket of balls on the grass, and either tee it up or just hit it off the grass mat. However Jerry was surrounded by three or four very lovely young ladies and they took care of all those annoying details like teeing up the ball and smiling at him and bringing him a drink and all kinds of stuff like that. It was then I thought maybe the rich live a little different life than I do.
I'm not really impressed by celebrities; they put on their pants same way I do. I believe I was coming out of the Riviera Hotel one time right at their front door and who do I see but Glen Campbell. I matter-of-factly say "Hi Glenn" and keep on walking. Glenn did a double take and I think he actually thought he knew me that I wasn't just some gaga fan who was now going to go ape the minute I saw the legendary Glen Campbell but that's the way I am.
I did get to see several of the most famous golfers in the world right after I got out of the Army in 1971 and a little later around 1980 when I was a Park Ranger. I went out to the Tucson Conquistadors Golf Course somewhere in Northeast Tucson, Arizona to watch the PGA tournament.
I got to watch a young Tom Watson who was the Tiger Woods of his day. He really hit the ball well. I was incredibly impressed with him and I still am.
Then I remember the leader of the tournament on the first day was a relatively unknown golfer that no one will probably remember but my memory is so good I remember his name was Jack Montgomery. I still remember he had a good drive on I believe the first hole and then he was fairly far away from the green so he elected to hit a fairway wood. Well Jack didn't quite hit that shot correctly because he hit the shot so low it hit right near the top left of the fairway sand trap about 150 yards short of the hole. Jack bogeyed that hole and wasn't near the leaderboard on the final day.
As l I can tell you from experience there is nothing that will take lots of distance off your golf shot like hitting it into a sand trap. So Jack was stuck scrambling because he hit the ball in the trap so hard it just barely flopped out in front of the trap so he had a long third shot and I remember he put that on the green but he missed the putt so he bogeyed the hole and that was the beginning of the end of his lead. I went to all four days to the tournament and it was really fun to watch and I enjoyed it. I forget who won but it was a great time when I was younger and supple and could walk for a whole day. I heartily encourage you to go out and see any good golf tournament in your neighborhood want your legs will still let you.
The courses were meticulous too; I still remember all of the courses I've seen were really, really incredible, the greens keepers do an incredible job preparing the golf course for a pro tournament. Now let me take you to a little later golf viewing at my local golf course called Randolph Park North in Randolph Park where you will read about my adventures as a Park Ranger; you'll see I was quite familiar with Randolph Park.
It's really a strange feeling to watch a pro play the same hole you have played before. Because they hit the ball places you've never even dreamed of on their drives and other shots. I was constantly amazed at how well the pros could hit the ball; it was a shock and you can't get any idea just how great they are unless you had been seeing them in person. You really can't get an idea of how far they're hitting the ball on television. You really need to see it in person.
And pros weren't the only people I saw at the golf tournament. I was there on Wednesday for one of the Randolph North Golf PGA tournaments; that's when they have the celebrities come out and play golf with the pros before the regular tournament starts on Thursday.
The first hole on Randolph North was a short par four and I would guess it's around 350 yards. The first day one of the first golfers I got to see on the first tee was none other than Willie Mays, yes that Willie Mays. In addition to being one of the greatest baseball players who ever lived, he was also an incredibly good golfer. I watched Willie hit his drive so well that he drove the green on the first hole, a 350 yard par four. After that I watched about half of all of the pros go for the green on the first hole which was posted be a par four but the pros and good celebrities are such good golfers, they turned it into a par three.
And they could easily go for the green because there were no obstacles right in front of the green such as a sand trap, water. No problems for the pros even if they hit a little bit short; they could run it up on the green. The weather in Tucson is so dry that virtually no rain falls and the fairways on the golf course get more like cement or brick and that was what the golf course was like. It's very hard and dry because you don't get much rain so you get a lot a roll on your ball and I have actually driven par fours on Randolph South which is easier course next to Randolph North. I've driven a 320 yard par four so it can be done because it's a lot easier to do when there is no obstacle in front of the green.
I guess the PGA Association got miffed that the golfers were just kind of laughing at them on the first hole because they did something I've never seen before or since. When I came back the second day, believe it or not; the PGA had gotten the grounds keepers of the golf course to put a little creek right across the front of the fairway right before the green so now if a golfer tried to lay up short and run it on the green, the ball would roll into the creek. So that basically stopped everybody going for the green and then they had to hit shorter club mostly irons and layup and then use a pitching wedge or club for hitting short shots for their second shot but it was fun the first day and I didn’t like the pros having to lay up but I would rather see them go for the green. It was more exciting but I guess the PGA doesn't like it and it has some kind of no fun for the spectators rule. The PGA makes the rules because they pay the money so they get what they want. I remember watching some other tournament on television and I think it was John Daly or some other exceptionally long hitters that used to drive the ball a special way and the PGA actually planted a fully grown tree overnight to prevent them from taking a shortcut.
And then I saw one of the funniest and most different twosomes I have ever seen in my life. The nice thing about a golf tournament is you can sit in one place and watch lots of different golfers come to the same hole or if you find a couple golfers you really like, you can just walk with them as they play all the holes on the course. Thus one big difference between watching a golf tournament and watching a basketball game or baseball game or foot ball game is that in golf you can keep walking around and have a lot more freedom to do what you want.
Because I always loved Fuzzy Zeller very much I decided to follow him around. Fuzzy is one of the all-time great crowd favorites because he loves to joke with the crowd and get some laughs. He's just a fun person.
Fuzzy was paired that day with another very good golfer named Jack Renner. I still remember one time Jack Renner thought he had won the Hawaiian Open. He finished his golf round and he was in a sitting by the edge of the green watching. Only one or two more golfers were still left on the course on Sunday and one of those golfers was Isao Ioaki, also a very good golfer. I still remember the announcers saying it looks like Jack Renner has won this tournament because Isao Ioaki would have to hole his second shot from 140 yards away on the fairway to win the tournament. That's exactly what the Isao did. He holed the 140 yard approach shot and won the Hawaiian Open and Jack finished second, unbelievable.
So I'm sitting on this hole that again shows how good the pros are. It was the second hole and right in front of the tee was a dry arroyo/dry creek that was maybe 50 yards in front of the tee. It wasn't even a problem for an amateur and would only come into play if somebody totally duffed there drive and the shot rolled off the tee into the arroyo which unfortunately I've done in my time and many other amateurs have done too but normally that would not be a problem for the pros. The hall was like a 490 yard par five for us amateurs who played the course week in and week out but because the pros are so good; the PGA made it like a 480 yard par four for the pros.
I'm standing with a large gallery awaiting Fuzzy Zeller and Jack Renner to hit their tee shots on this used to be par five, that is now a long par four. Fuzzy hits his tee shot first; it’s perfect, way out there, right in the middle of the fairway probably 300 yards or more in perfect position to hit his approach shot. Then Jack Renner steps up to hit his tee shot.
Jack was a little bit off on this tee shot and he proceeded to hit a very low slice that started out in the fairway and immediately went to the right and hit somebody in the gallery along the right-hand edge of the fairway. You have to understand that Jack Renner is like death warmed over. Jack doesn't say anything, he looks like he's just come from a funeral for his mother, is very sour looking, unhappy looking, sad looking whatever you want to call it and I'm sure Fuzzy just decided he was going to needle Jack because Jack is just the kind of person that Fuzzy would go crazy over trying to get a laugh out of because it would be almost impossible. Very matter-of-factly, Fuzzy turned to Jack and said "Hey Jack, I think you killed him with that tee shot." The crowd watching Jack and Fuzzy went crazy and just started laughing so loud. That was one of the funniest things I've ever heard.
Oh and I almost forgot. Remember I told you I watched Willie Mays on the celebrity Pro-Am day. Guess who else I saw that day playing golf which was a big surprise? Ex-president Gerald Ford was out there in Tucson, Arizona playing in the celebrity Pro-Am on Wednesday. And after watching ex-president Ford hit a few golf balls, I think I easily could spot him three or four shots a nine and still make a lot of money.
He was an awful golfer, a very, very bad golfer. But the one thing that pissed me off is that while he was playing golf out there, he was surrounded by these really mean and pushy Secret Service agents and they would just basically shove their way through any crowd pushing people out of the way so that President Ford didn't get held up and I resented that. An early indication of why I would not like government because of their arrogance, uncaring and forgetting about the people they're supposed to serve.
I followed Fuzzy and Jack all the way around and I remember Fuzzy ended up on 18 by hitting a not so good tee shot in the left rough but from the left rough he hit this magnificent approach shot maybe 2 or 3 feet away from the pin and sank the putt for a birdie. I Love Fuzzy and I still love him because he is one of the greatest characters to ever play the game of golf and golf spectators and golf lovers are far better off because of people like Fuzzy Zeller in the game.
But remember I was going to tell you about celebrities I saw. Well, I get to combine celebrities with golf in this paragraph. I had an advantage when I went to Randolph Park to watch the golf tournament because I was a Park Ranger. I had keys for all of the locked gates and I would just go onto the course when I was a working or not working without even paying. I would just tell people I'm here in my undercover capacity as a Park Ranger trying to avoid any trouble out here for the golfers ha – ha - ha.
One day I got to the golf course early maybe before the tournament even started like a day or two before the golf tournament was going to start and I was just wandering around on the golf course for God knows what reason when I look out on the golf course and I see this man dressed in a very nice suit walking up the fairway and he was talking to himself. I couldn't understand it and I am thinking to myself, is this some kind of a homeless nutcase loose on the golf course? So I walked closer to see what was going on.
It turned out it wasn't a homeless guy; it was Tom Seaver, the great pitcher for the New York Mets who was wearing his microphone backpack with the little wireless antenna and Tom was walking the fairways talking into the microphone so the sound people back at the headquarters of the trailer that broadcasts the golf to the world on the days of tournament could see if Tom's wireless microphone was working. Tom was just playing with hit with his microphone and seeing if it's working out there on the golf course. Kind of like the Verizon ad where the little guy goes can you hear me, can you hear me now?
Still very funny to see one guy dressed in a nice suit walking alone on a golf fairway because the golf course was closed to everybody so was nobody else was around Tom. It was really weird but once I got closer I understood what they were doing.
And I got something I really treasured from one of the golf tournaments at Randolph North. I figured out one reason why golf pros do so well is they have this little what I would call cheat book but it's not really a cheat book but a little green book that showed all of the holes and would measure the distances on the greens and would list the yardage from the sprinkler head or a tree or something like that which would help the golfers figure out what club to hit next or where they should hit on the green to get the best chance for birdie.
A quick interruption, isn’t a great write your own book, you can do what you want. I forgot to tell you what I used to do when I was a Park Ranger at Randolph Park. As you can see from the preceding paragraphs, Randolph Park had two golf courses. Most Randolph golfers weren't as good as Tom Watson or Billy Casper and some of the other great pros and were known to hit a bad shot or two. So what me and this one other Park Ranger used to constantly do whenever we were patrolling the ages of the golf course including when we were on the main road just north of the golf course called Broadway, we would constantly be looking for golf balls hit by people that were laying alongside the road inside the park or on Broadway. I can honestly tell you I found enough golf balls during my days as a Park Ranger to last me forever.
And every baseball fan's dream is to get their hands on that major league baseball hit by one of the stars of professional baseball. I found and easy, foolproof way to get my hands on major league baseballs hit by professional baseball players for the Cleveland Indians. I think I mentioned when I was talking about the University of Arizona playing baseball that Hi Corbett Field was a very hard park to hit a home run in because the distance from home plate was very great and the walls were very high. But some professional baseball players were capable of hitting a ball for a home run at Hi Corbett Field. Right behind Hi Corbett Field was this maintenance yard area that stored a bunch of equipment used in the park. It was off limits to everybody except Park employees.
When I was working in Randolph Park, I would actually unlock the gate drive around in the maintenance yard because of course I had to watch out for thieves stealing equipment from the park and while I was looking out for thieves in an unauthorized area I felt I was free to look for major league baseballs that had been hit by professional baseball players. I found quite a lot of professional baseballs and AAA baseballs when the AAA minor-league team was playing at hi Corbett Field. As you can see, every now and then the mushroom gets out of the cave what he likes to do.
I was able to get my hands on one of those little green help the professional golfer books from God knows where. I don't know if I even have that book anymore but I hope so. I hope I kept it but I haven't seen it in years. But not only did I get this little green book but I actually went into the trailer and got the little green book autographed by John Brody, a great quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers and by Mickey Wright, one of the great female golfers who ever lived. They were very nice people and they autographed my book and I really appreciated it.
I still remember the following one of the leaders; I think he won the tournament. He was really great golfer named Bruce Lichkie. I was very impressed by how well the pros drove the golf ball but then by following them around I figured out why they were so good. They weren't so good because they hit long drives; they were so good because they had the most incredible short game and putting skills I have ever seen – it was like a night and day difference. I could tell the average pro would still beat me by maybe 30 or 40 shots around even if I could play my second shot from where the pro hit his drive; they were that good from short distances, it was just incredible.
One time I did meet James Whitmore who is a very great actor I remember still one of the last movie roles and he was great in it was the Shawshank Redemption where he played the old library worker and finally gets paroled after he been in prison like 50 years he was really great.
I met a couple of famous commercial actors I don't remember their names but if you saw them you would recognize them. It was just a case I don't quite live in the same world of celebrities so if I ever run into them it's purely by accident.