Beginning of Golfing Career

Tom: Well, I grew up, I didn’t even own a club — we’d take a big ol’ piece of wire, in the form of a golf club, and swing at the pine cones and stuff in the yard. And I lived next to the golf course over in what used to be the Jewish club over on Covington Road, and it got to be the American Legion, and most people don’t even know that originally was a Jewish Club. A fellow named Livingston came from Scotland, he was the pro, and he bordered our house, which was just next door to the golf course.

So three boys, we’d go on over, and one day we got in the way of some of the players over there, and Mr. Livingston came back and said “Mr. Forkner, I hate to say this but the committee over at the club has said that your boys can’t come over to the golf course anymore.” And so my daddy said “Now boys, we got the word, so as long as I see it you don’t go on to that golf course.” My oldest brother said “well, is that a two-way road?” He said “what do you mean?” He said “if we can’t go over there, can they come over here?” He said “no, I guess that’s fair enough.”

So my oldest brother on Sunday afternoon went over and got him a pile of rocks. And on the eighth hole, it was parallel to the property we had, and he sat down and somebody’d hit the ball over the fence, they’d send the caddy over to get it. And that Sunday, the caddy started over the fence and Laurence had a rock in his hand and said “don’t come over that fence.” [laughter] And the caddy said “well, throw that ball over to me.” He said “that’s my ball, this is on my side.” [laughter]

And next week Mr. Livingston came back kind of laughing and said “the committee has met again and said you boys can come on the golf course, just please stay out of the way.” [laughter]