It’s easy sometimes to just miss what may be important and focus on what holds your interest. From infancy we learned to lock in on the bright and shiny things in life.
So when Bellerive Country Club and the PGA of America rolled out the formal word of the 2013 Senior PGA Championship and the 2018 PGA Championship at a press conference, I like, I suspect many, thought the third element binding the two events to the Gateway PGA Foundation and its Outreach Program was a nice PR move. Nothing like having a Hall of Fame shortstop and Foundation president like Ozzie Smith on the dais to dress up the affair.
So when the special invitation from the Gateway’s Executive Director, Josh Riley, arrived, I had to stop and pull out the Bellerive releases for a second look. The invitation was an opportunity to spend a few minutes on mike with the great Henry Aaron. The occasion was the “Night of the Legends,” an evening with two baseball All Timers and the cause was not a PR gesture.
There’s plenty of time to promote the coming majors, but foundations with an ongoing mission need financial promotion in the present and Ozzie, Bellerive and Hammerin Hank were stepping up to the plate (teeing it up) for local kids here and now.
For someone my age, Aaron is a reminder of when baseball and I were entwined in ways impossible to imagine in today’s ubiquitous sports environment. Baseball for me was the Sporting News each week and reading minor league box scores to find the next great gem in the Cardinals farm system. Aaron was part of that Milwaukee machine and when I played Wiffle ball in my driveway I was Musial to my friend’s Burdette and he was Henry Aaron to my Larry Jackson. I still recall the way Curt Simmons used to mystify Aaron with his off speed assortment, and the only time he solved him for a homerun he stepped over the plate to time it and was called out.
Aaron sort of flinched as I started the interview with my announced intention to talk golf. Kevin Wheeler and the guys on the Sports Hub would probably shake their heads in disgust that I wasted this brief one-one without bringing up Bonds, or Gibson or the Say Hey Kid. But golf it was and I knew going in that Aaron had only been at the game for a relatively short time once balky knees made tennis less available.
“ I suppose the reason it had taken me so long to get to golf, “ he said, “was my legs would allow me to do the other things. I was able run. Now that I have had my 76th birthday, I am taking the slow approach. I am playing more golf than anything.”
Mike Shannon would be quick to remind you that Aaron was a five tool ballplayer before the label had ever been invented, an athlete with all time great power to boot. But that little white ball lying on the ground has never seen his shrine in Cooperstown and like most who cross over it offers no respect.
When asked how good of a golfer Hank Aaron is he laughs gently and says, “Not very good. It’s strictly a recreation for me. I try to do the best I can and sometimes my best is 99 and sometimes it’s 100 and if I get close to the 80’s I feel like I need to celebrate.”
Maybe it’s those more than 12,000 times standing at home plate, but the teeing ground is where he finds success in golf. “I can get off the tee. Swinging and hitting the ball straight is not a problem,” he says. “It’s that second shot and the third shot. Those are the things that cause me problems.”
One element Aaron finds consistent through all his athletic pursuits is simple focus. “In all of it no matter whether you are playing baseball, or tennis or anything, you have to watch the ball. You can’t putt good. You can’t hit good. You can’t do anything if you don’t watch the ball.”
While Aaron was late to golf, the sporting world today is replete with athletes from every sport who have the clubs ready to go in season or out. You hear the rumors about how good of a golfer this player or that may be. Former Cy Young winner John Smoltz once told me he had no doubt he would be able to play the game professionally at some level. Like our town’s Brett Hull, Smoltz teed it up recently on the developmental tour and discovered a recreational round with Tiger is not the same as getting inside the ropes with people trying to make a career. Smoltz shot 84-87 and missed the cut by 27 strokes and Aaron was not surprised.
“Golf is like any other sport. You think you can play it well until you play it with someone who knows how to play the game. Smoltz was out with the pros and he was just like duck soup. It just proves one thing. If you don’t grow up with a golf club in you hand, or a baseball bat in your hand or a tennis racket in your hand at an early age, you are just going to be a frustrated athlete.”
I suspect Aaron was there because he knows there is more to the Gateway’s Outreach Program than just golf. This isn’t the First Tee Lite. It’s about the whole person and life’s frustrations and golf is just the vehicle. When I picked up that release I revisited Ozzie’s press conference remarks. “It is wonderful to see the City of St. Louis, which has been a major piece of my heart for so long, connect with golf in such a significant way to bring hope to many who would otherwise not have that opportunity,” said Smith. “The Gateway PGA Outreach Program is about opening doors through the influence of golf in enhancing education, the economy and family health and wellness. I could not be more excited for St. Louis in the days and years ahead.”
Dan Reardon is Golf Editor at KMOX. He can be heard throughout the week on America’s Sports Voice.
