[FASTLARRY]

Shoot a 59

Now and then, when you have soft conditions, you can lift and place, you can go low if you get hot.


http://qctimes.com/sports/golf/professiona...1cc4c002e0.html


Its very rare to see one.

My first real teacher was Jug McSpadden, who was like my 2nd father in the late 60's and early 70's when I was a charter member of his new club, dubs dread in Piper ks. I gave him all the pipe free to irrigrate his entire course underground, and the deal was, he would take me under his wing and teach me to be a player, which he did. He kept those huge greens Augusta fast, and back then I was traveling and working hard as a salesman and would only get in 3 rounds a week, 2 on the weekend at Jugs club. I would come in off those Kansas slow muni greens and jump onto Augusta speed bent, If I got 25' away and missed on a putt, I would run 6' past every time. You had to live on them to play them. So I hit a lot of fairways and greens, and 3 putted way too many, which drove me nuts. And I was not a bad putter either. His 18th green was 55 yards deep. Hit it bad and a 100' putt was common on it. You miss a couple of those 6 footers coming back for par and all of a sudden you begin to panic and get scared on the next one, then you are toast.

A couple of times a month Jug and I would play, with his house pro, and another top player, and it would always be for a sporting bet. I would usually play Jug and the house pro the scratch player from the 7200 yrd tees. They loved a bunch of trash bets also. Jug always gave me a generous spot knowing my usual game was then 74-75. I could drive the ball out there with him, hit almost the same amount of greens, but he it close and when I hit, it could be anywhere on the green, I was always too far away, or on the wrong side of the cup. He tried to make a copy of Augusta and like their greens, his was the same, get on the wrong part of the green and your dead. It was a course, so hard, only he could play it, which was why almost every one hated it, it would crush anyone over a 7 handicap.

He could do a 69 drunk and half asleep on me, so even though I got 2 a side, I always lost. Sometimes I would be a tad hungover and slide up to a 77. Jug could go low, if you pushed him, and never went above 72, never, and he hated to lose and rarely did. One match, it rained the day before hard, and the greens grew and slowed down. I began making birdie putts and lagging stone dead on my pars. I put a 69 on him, and the old fart put a 63 back on me. That was Jug, man he could play, he could play as good as Byron, and I saw them play side by side several times, when they let me caddy for them.

Jug tolf me he was the first to shoot a 59, I think if memory serves me is was in the late 30's, in the Philliphines in a tourney, and back then, no pros played out of the country, they would not even go to Scotland for the open. Sam was about the only one who went over and he stopped because even if you won, the pay was so small, after expenses you lost money on the trip. So Jugs 59, since it was not a US event, nobody counted it. A few years later, he had a 59 best ball in a PGA event. He told me Sam also had a 59, but it was in an exhibition and nobody counted it either.