by Glenn Tschimpke
Staff Writer
John deGarmo says it’s a book that had to be written.
At 77, he’s played through a lifetime of golf trends. A scratch golfer in his prime, he’s been around long enough to know a thing or two about how the play the game. With explosion of golf’s growth and popularity in the last decade, he notes that the proliferation of new players has actually hurt the game — from a purists point of view.
Thus the impetus for “Hey Kids, Start Golf Right.” Taking aim at the legions of young up-and-coming golfers, deGarmo focuses on the fundamentals of skill, etiquette and courtesy that seems to have been overlooked among new-generation players.
“The growth of golf has mushroomed,” said deGarmo, a Ponte Vedra Beach resident. “And every 35-year-old broker who’s making more money than he ever dreamed he would has joined a club. He’s got two kids and a wife who wants to play golf because it’s the thing to do. So they’re all out on the golf course and they’re crowding the golf course. They don’t follow the rules because they don’t know them. They don’t understand the etiquette because they’ve never been exposed to it.”
Taken at face value, he may sound like an old curmudgeon who’s having a hard time scheduling a tee time on his favorite course. That’s not the case. He embraces the fact that the popularity of golf is booming, especially among youths with the rise and success of young players like Tiger Woods. What makes deGarmo cringe are the scores of green golfers bumbling around on courses across the land, hacking here and hacking there, carving deep divots in the greens, dressing like slouches and generally ruffling the feathers of the established golfers. As a purist, his complaints deserve merit.
“Golf is a gentlemen’s game and a ladies’ game,” he said. “Dress for it. Be nice. Be neat. We’re not telling you what clothes to wear, but we are telling you to be neat.”
From his years working with the American Junior Golf Association in the early 1980s to the Tiger Woods era of today, he’s noticed an abundance of young golfers who may be technically skilled, but are lacking in course etiquette. He wrote “Hey Kids, Start Golf Right” as a beginners guide to golf to educate youngsters on the mechanics of the game as well as outlining some of the finer points of the fairways.
Full of advice, deGarmo’s book explains the fundamentals of golf, from proper club grip to swing mechanics to golf slang to etiquette. He packs the book full of everything a young golfer needs to know to behave in a refined and polished manner on the greens.
Despite his zeal for the game, deGarmo is smart enough to realize that anyone with enough initiative to write doesn’t automatically create a good golf book. During the course of writing, he said he paused a moment and thought, “Who the hell is John deGarmo to teach people to play golf? What credentials do I have? Absolutely none . . . a few trophies. I’ve played a long time. I’ve been as low as a one handicap. I know how to play.”
Knowing how to play doesn’t necessarily equate to knowing how to teach. So he recruited PGA professional Sam Wiley to help shape the mechanics portion of the book. Wiley is the head professional at Wee Burn Country Club in Darien, Conn., where deGarmo has a membership.
“I went into Sam’s shop one day and I said, ‘I need a lesson.’ So we went out on the practice tee. I signed up, intentionally, for a half-hour lesson,” said deGarmo. “Well my half-hour lesson ended up being almost an hour. I never saw him look at his watch. I disagreed with him on two or three things just to see what he’d say. I was, frankly, testing him. I was so impressed by him that I called him that night and said I’m doing a book and would like to show it to him.”
After reviewing the manuscript, Wiley changed a few items, but surprisingly less that deGarmo anticipated.
“He got the really poignant things where I missed a very important point,” said deGarmo. “He said there are some things you take for granted that people aren’t going to do unless you show them how or tell them how.”
Of course, deGarmo dedicated a special section to etiquette in which he expounds on some of the game’s basic courtesies that are sometimes forgotten: tuck in your shirt, put your hat on straight, replace your divots, don’t hold up players behind you and don’t throw your clubs...but if you have to, make sure the flight path is clear.
“I can’t believe some of the things people do on the golf course,” said deGarmo. “Some is out of ignorance. Some is out of arrogance. It’s not just a trend. It’s that now you’ve got 25 million people playing golf. Ten years ago, you had 15 million playing golf.
“The degree of education hasn’t stayed up with the degree or rounds played by the growth of people playing the game. The degree of ignorance has swelled as the population of golf has swelled.”
deGarmo is a retired advertising executive who has been playing golf since he was a preteen. “Hey Kids, Start Golf Right” is his fourth book.
“I’m sure you’ve read many times where somebody says they want to give back to the game,” he said. “I want to give something back to the game. I suppose my ego gets in here. I want a legacy and I’d like to have somebody say something someday, ‘Remember that book that came out?’ I’d like to contribute something to golf.”