Ghetto Golf

“Boy, the white man say that we all sprang from apes, but obviously you didn't sprang far enough.”

Beachhead laughed like a fog horn as he fed Bruce, his shiny cauldron black capuchin monkey with a pasty spot on its head.  He gave a misshapen shelled peanut while the monkey adjusted his master’s shaded eyeglasses that were tipping slightly.

Curtis “BeachHead” Goodman was a black 5-time local retired champion in golfing who decided to take me under his wing to teach me “the beautiful sport” as he called it.  I think he felt pity for me (another black man) and would have been hospitalized early for his laughing at me from his friends telling of my antics. 

Beachhead is definitely an enigma.  He was not only a champion but he was also blind.  He didn’t let that stop him.  He had taught himself how to play the game of golf with his inner strength. His powerful cast iron will help him to overcome this “handicap” to greatness.  A southerner who came from the ghetto who became the best.

“Boy, are ya rea-lay thinkin’ ya are going to be a good playa, Rye Bread?”  Beachhead popped a Hot Tamale candy into his mouth.  He was addicted to those things.  He called all his students after exotic breads for some reason.

When you were around him, he smelled alike a Grandma’s old candy jar mixed with Old Spice deodorant.  Yet the respect I had for the man I overlooked this.  He never complained about his blindness.  In fact, he seemed to enjoy the challenge. 

Bruce was basically the replacement for the typical seeing-eye dog.

Bruce was the epitome of a naughty monkey.  He made Curious George look like an altar boy.  Bruce would look up the dresses of the wives to smacking them on the behind.  He would wash his feet in his own urine than dropkick climb up Beachhead’s opponents to distract them. Yet he obeyed Beachhead like a soldier at the sound of his voice

Though Beachhead would never tell me about how got he got to be blind, I did overheard his war buddies who looked like grizzled Spartan warriors joke about the time he slugged an officer when he was in the Navy for calling him a slave boy.  So I knew at least he was in the Armed Services at one point of his life.

I think Beachhead kept me around for laughs and to forget his past.

I’m sure I looked a sight too.  Everything from shelling the ball through the community club President’s party to majestically smacking through the birthday cake of a kid’s party to whacking the ball straight through a nearby BBQ party.  I was always the party animal.

Not to mention the fact that I could not find comfortable golf clothes to wear so I would toss on what I had available.  Because I was so excited to have a champion teach me, I would rush out of the home and forgetting to stuff the right clothes in the golf bag.

Needless to say, I dreaded having to wear my 16 year daughter’s Black Eyed Peas T-shirt while golfing and people looking at my ashy knees because I forgot to lotion up before getting out to the course.  I didn’t care.  I was being taught by a champion.

You see, I needed to relieve stress so I decided to learn how to play golf in order to bring my blood pressure down (according to the doctor, I am a walking time bomb).  Except the exact opposite was happening…I was getting more frustrated which equaled more blood pressure. 

What does a black man like know about golfing?  I feel like elephant ballerina trying to shoot basketball against the Michael Jordan of golf.  I knew I just had to brush off Beachhead’s insult and get my head in the game.

Funny.  In the ghetto, you don’t see my people trying to learn golf.  It’s not like anyone dreamed of being a golf player.  Like you would go up to Jerome in my neighborhood and say, “Hey bro, what do you want to be growing up?”

“PSST.  Bro, I’m gonna be a golf playa.  All the ladies and all that money!”

Most of the black kids in my high school (from the 80’s to 90’s) wanted to be like Wilt Chamberlain from the NBA or Walter Payton from the NFL.  Now here I was.  I wasn’t good at anything.  I was the odd man out.  Never fitted in.

From standing in frosty and frigid weather in Cincinnati where it got down to…oh, negative one thousand degrees, and trying to look cool while eating an egg sandwich with gripping the sides of the aluminum foil. 

To wearing my hair like Prince because the movie Purple Rain came out.

Yup, I was definitely different.  Still, I knew that I could do this.  I had to focus. Yeah, that’s it.  Focus on being the best.  Beachhead did it.  He was the very best as what he did because he didn’t refuse to give up.  I was not a quitter.  I was a winner.

“Boy, if ya swing like that again, I will beat ya down with my 5-iron.  Ya remember what I taught cha?  Put your butt and your hips into the swing.  Not just your arms.”

“Sigh.  Yes, blind Obi-Kwon,” I said under my breath.

Beachhead was a taskmaster on practice.  He would have Bruce go and fetch him a Coca-Cola while he drilled his students.  The proof was in the pudding though.  Beachhead has created several local champions and one who went pro.


“That’s all for today, Rye Bread.  Believe or not, you are improving.”

“Thanks.” I gasped as I wiped sweat from my brow.

Who would have thought a black kid from Cincinnati could learn golf from a champion…I would say ghetto golf.  Then again, I’m so different.