Lessons learned: Defending my territory

This is the second in a three-part series about lessons Healy learned in his early days working on a golf course.

The third and last lesson learned on hole 15 is as a result of the dumbest thing I have ever done.

I can still smell the smoke from the 16 gauge shotgun as I fired both barrels in the general direction of the perpetrator. I had just done the dumbest thing in my life, and it still remains at the top of my “dumbest thing” list more than four decades later. Maybe that’s why 18 year olds make the best soldiers; they shoot first and think about the consequences as an afterthought.

I was being robbed, and I knew it. My take of golf balls from hole 15 and the adjacent No. 4 hole was down to almost nothing. I could see the back and forth tracks of the thief in the Salt Creek spur in front of the No. 15 green. I tended to my ball hawk duties on Thursdays and Mondays; as Wednesdays and Saturdays/Sundays were the major golfer traffic days. On good weekends, we would have more than 700 golfers, some teeing off as early as 4:30 a.m., with the final foursomes making their way back to the clubhouse after 9 p.m. The thief worked on Wednesday and Sunday nights, leaving me next to nothing in the way of retrieved golf balls.

I had to do something, and as an 18 year old I immediately came up with a plan that wasn’t the brightest. So on a Wednesday night I put my brother’s 16 gauge, double-barrel shotgun in the trunk of my car and headed out to York Golf Club. I parked my car behind a stand of blue spruce next to the long tee at No. 15 and walked to the second tee that gave me a clear “shot” at the creek on No. 4, immediately in front of the green. About midnight I heard the methodic splash and drag over the gravel bottom of the creek, a sound I most certainly knew as I had heard it every time I had cast my own specially designed rake at that same location.

“You @%&!, take this,” as I fired both barrels at once in the general direction of where I heard the sound. There was no crying out, but simply a rapid splash, splash, splash as the thief made his way to shore.

Early the next morning I and the pro, Vince Di Tella, found the thief’s equipment; his waders, rake and golf ball bag along Cermak Road. I took those items home with me for safe keeping.

A day or two later the golf course received a telephone call from an unknown person suggesting that the thief’s equipment should be returned to where it was found or the golf course might end up having gasoline spread and ignited on several of its greens. The equipment was immediately returned and no more threats were received.

I ended my career as ball hawk a short time later, as I became a freshman at a university some five hours driving time from home and my after-school and weekend work in the fall and spring came to an end.

So what would have happened to me in today’s world? I can’t help but think I would have ended up in jail, while the thief successfully brought suit against York Club for “pain and suffering” due to being shot at. I sometimes wonder if I could ever shoot at anyone ever, for any reason. Most likely not, but, perhaps, just maybe, and then I turn to other thoughts. GCI

Do you have nostalgic experiences of your own from your early days working in golf course maintenance? If so, we’d like to hear them. E-mail Senior Editor Marisa Palmieri at mpalmieri@gie.net, and we'll run our favorites on golfcourseindustry.com.

Michael J. Healy, Ph.D., is a turfgrass pathologist in private practice operating out of southern Alabama. He can be reached at: 251-986-6240 or mjhealy@gulftel.com.