I have been in the business of golf since 1971, when I first started installing irrigation systems in golf courses for my family's golf course construction company. A long, long, time. Since then, I have learned a lot about this mysterious game that sometimes gives us "happiness", but more often, it doesn't. Many times golf it is like a friend who without knowing, embarrasses us in public.
My family first got into golf when I was 13, which is when I began swinging a club, but didn't fall in love with the game until three years later after watching Arnold Palmer (my mom's favorite), and Jack Nicklaus (my favorite), win the 1967 World Cup (former Canada Cup) at our home club in Mexico City. What a show! The sound of the ball was so different! And these players, along with many of the others, including Antonio Cerda, our home pro who was representing Mexico, seemed to have so much fun doing what they were doing. There was more, some played a draw, some played a fade, some hit it low and some hit it high, and they all did quite well.
Since then, I have seen many talented players. Played with some of them as well. Talent will take you to high places, but wisdom on how to use your talent is also an ingredient. SOME PLAYERS NEVER LEARN WISDOM. But there is more: even if you have talent, even if you acquire the necessary knowledge and wisdom, there is more to being successful as a professional player. One is passion about it... but, there is more after that.
For the next several years after that '67 World Cup, I didn't think of anything but golf, at least as far as spare time was concerned. I read books and magazines. I devoured Ben Hogan's Five Modern Fundamentals and read biographies, history of golf, etc. Then I found a book titled, "One Move for Better Golf" (Carl Lohren, who happens to mention Hogan) that made the golf swing -at least in my mind-, much easier, less "complicated". I became a pretty decent player, particularly after I started joining the Wednesday group which included three professionals, Antonio Cerda, our home head professional who had been an accomplished international player before taking this job, and his two assistants, Angel Moreno and Trini Rivera.
I have to say that this was an expensive "golf school", "expensive wisdom", at least for the first year. But I truly learned to play the game with my God given talent to the best of my personal ability. I remember my "second dad" (my dad had died when I was 5, and my mother had remarried to a wonderful man) telling me that if I wanted to learn top play well, to play with better players all the time. So I did, and always tired to get in one of the groups where one of the pros was playing. I quickly learned that you do not have to swing "perfect" to p[lay good golf, that there is more to golf than just good swings: good misses are important! And good players produce good misses.
So, you could say that as far was "wisdom", I learned by all three methods: reading, imitating and by trial and error. That part only took me so far, after that, winning tournaments, beating other accomplished players, etc., was not a matter of how good I could swing a golf club or how much I knew about my game or a course, it was a matter of how much I believed I could accomplish.
In 1973, as an amateur, I qualified for my first Mexican Open to be played at Club Bellavista. Lee Trevino, who had come in second in '71, and who by then had four major championships to his credit, was, of course, the favorite, particularly in this course which required great placement off the tee, and a good strategy on the approach shots to these severely undulated greens.
I shot 73 in the first round and, while I was five back of the leader, Victor Regalado, and in about 25th place, I was truly happy because I was leading Lee Trevino by two (73 to 75). As it turned out, Trevino, with whom I had hit balls on Wednesday, before the first round, was pretty upset, as much as for his score, as for the course set-up which had played shorter than anticipated, something that he made known to the president of the Mexican Golf Federation, Billy Lozano.
Billy, now angered and embarrassed in public by Trevino ("Billy, if you had told me we were going to play the ladies' tees, I would have sent Claudia to play instead!"), had the committee "tip" the course the next day to "show Trevino" how long this course could really play, and privately, made bets that Trevino would now miss the cut. Billy lost the bet.
Trevino, whose majors had not come in "short" courses, came on Friday and shot a 65, on a day where no one else broke 70. He went on to win by 5 shots at 281. That second, I "hit the ball pretty good", but shot 77 and barely made the cut. My brother Armando made the cut after a 76-73. My joy from the first day turned to an incredulous: "How did Lee shoot a 65?" In my mind's eye, there was no 65 on that course, at least not something that I could believe I could do.
Four years later, I found myself hitting balls right next to Billy Capser the day prior to the start of the Mexican Open in Chiluca. I introduced myself to Casper, who was not very friendly, so I proceeded to make my best effort to hit the ball farther than him on the range. I must have "intimidated" him a lot, because he ended up winning and I missed the cut (you could say that twice, I was within 20 feet of "winning the Mexican Open", since I was on the wrong spot on the range).
Anyway, the same day in which I "intimidated" the great Billy Casper, I was asked to play a "quick nine" by Ernesto Perez Acosta, the home pro and a good friend of mine. and a young man named Severiano Ballesteros, who with Manuel Pinero had won the previous year's World Cup in Palm Springs (Ernesto had won the individual title in that 1976 World Cup, and later, "Seve" would go on to win five international major championships and become the best player in the world of his time).
That day, though, was an important day in my life as I got a "reality check": I played a pretty good nine of one over par 36 (par was 70), while "Seve" shot 29! A 29 that looked more like a 35 or 36, but he could putt and come out of jail like no one I had ever seen. Just like I had not seen a 65 in my mind's eye four years before, I just could not see a 29 that day on that course! Furthermore, this kid got beat by Billy Casper, who could not hit it within 40 yards of Seve! That is when I believed that I could never do that! And that is when I proved Henry Ford had a quote that applied to me more than the opening quote by Confucius: "If you believe that you can or if you believe that you can't, you are right!"...
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