I was selling newspapers on a busy corner in Fort Worth, Texas and to gain this piece of valuable real-estate I had to use my fists. I was only 9, but I was a rough customer. Any kid that wanted to take my newspaper spot met with my ire. And after a while they gave up and regarded the corner as “Benny Hogan’s.”
As I was selling newspapers one day, I heard that the Glen Garden Country Club was paying caddies three-times what I was making selling the papers. I worked selling those papers on that corner from 6 in the morning until 9 o’clock at night. But as a caddy I could make that money in only 6 hours. So, I certainly wanted a piece of this. To get into Glen Garden as a caddy, you had to be related to one of the other caddies. Not only was I not related to any of the caddies there, but I didn’t know any of them except for the one that told me about the job. I went in and lied and told the other caddies that I was a cousin to my friend who vouched for me.
Well I started caddying and I was making money hand over fist. My mother was so proud of me as the money was helping my princess sister and mother make ends meet. It wasn’t that I was using the money for my own benefit, I was using it to help put food on the table for my family, and I felt that the lie I told was justified.
About mid-summer, the head of the caddies came over to me and said that they found out that I was no relation to my friend and that I was going to be tried in a tribal court with the charges were crimes against humanity, which at the time I thought was excessive, but being only 9, I accepted it. I sat on the swing and all the caddies voted. The outcome was determined before the vote that I was to be found guilty. Back in those days at Glen Garden, the guilty verdict meant you could either no longer caddy or you had to be rolled down a big hill covered with bumps, rocks and stones in a wooden barrel and when you got down to the bottom of the hill you had to fight the largest caddy from the yard. His name was Smitty and he was a farm boy from out in the country. Smitty was about 200 pounds and 6’3″. I was only 5’2″ and weighed just over 100 pounds. I had to make a choice: Do I walk out of Glen Garden from the best job of my life or do I go down the hill in the barrel? Having gone to church as young boy, I knew the David and Goliath story, the choice was easy: I’m taking the barrel because at least it gives me a shot to stay and caddy. It wasn’t just the caddying that I loved, I had also become addicted to the game of golf. I loved every bit of it and I vowed I would become the best golfer the world had ever seen, barred none.
So they put me in the barrel and they rolled me down this steep hill. The caddies were all screaming and yelling as I rolled down this hill, hitting every rock and bump that was on that hill. When I got to the bottom of that hill my head was spinning like a crazy. As I waited for the spinning to stop, I looked out the end of the barrel and I saw Smitty waiting for me, about 30 yards away. I came out of the barrel and I bull rushed him, hitting him right in his gut and knocking him to the ground. I crawled on top of him and just kept hitting him and hitting him. Even though his nose was bloody and face already bruising, I wouldn’t stop. The caddies had to pull me off of him. Smitty was between my dream, and that dream was going to be a reality. The caddies pulled me off Smitty and all moved away from me as if I was nuts, which at that moment I was. Smitty got up, dusted himself off, looked me dead in the eye and he said to me words I will never forget for the rest of my life: “Welcome, welcome to Glen Garden Country Club.”
The Blue Whale Exercise Program 