The Pro Also Has CONVERSION PROBLEMS By JERRY COOKE Pro, Edgewater Club, Chicago,

N THE CLUBHOUSE pros hear their have been able to get in enough golf to I businessmen members talk about prob- balance the pressure. lems of conversion. And these problems are headaches. But if the pro thinks the Let Nature Take Its Course? conversion problems of most successfully "Well, where's the conversion problem switching from wartime to peace are not in golf with them ? They are the solid, going to be any trouble to him he is mis- knowing sort of members who'll always taken. do business with the pro." That's the com- The stored-up demand for golf goods is ment some might make about my situa- going to break loose in a flood. Many tion. The analysis is right. Our members smart merchants—department, chain, and are accustomed to belonging to the finest sports stores—are "-oing to make aggres- in golf and city clubs. They know that I sive bids for this business of old and new am on the job and have served them by golfers. The pro to hold his own and to making sure that they get the best equip- strengthen his prestige and earning posi- ment available. tion in this situation, will have to be fore- But they have been getting five years sighted. older at a time when age begins to dictate Today he has to be well along in con- changes in a man's golf clubs. And during version. that five years not many clubs have been This conversion to peacetime golf was on sale. So I will have a conversion prob- planned ahead at Edgewater. Edgewater lem of making absolutely certain that my is well within the city limits of Chicago. postwar stocks are perfectly suited to a In that respect it is almost unique among membership older than I served when the the older and distinguished golf clubs of war started. This is one of the things to the country. We're only about a half hour be prepared to meet in conversion in the from Chicago's Loop. Many of our mem- . bers live near the club. They include a The way to study that problem is on number of Chicago's prominent business- the lesson or in playing lessons. My men. lesson business has been especially big Quite a number of these men were at the past two years. One day last month years when normally they would have I gave 22 half-hour lessons. begun taking things easy. Then the war The increase in lesson business hasn't came along and they worked harder than been entirely spontaneous. I've nursed it they ever worked for years before. Very along for three reasons. One is that I definitely these men, and their wives who know these men needed some exercise and were deep in Red Cross and other war if they didn't get time for much actual organization work, have been kept going play I saw that they got exercise on the at high speed in their work because they lesson tee. Another is that with all the things they've had to worry about in war But now on Mondays when I give the business I wanted to see that they scored group lessons and the club allows as well as possib« so their golf didn't turn them to play we always have more than out to be another trouble instead of a a hundred show up. With these youngsters pleasant relaxation. And the third was as the nucleus of our supply we that I looked ahead to my own conversion generally have plentv. problem so that when these men convert But in solving that problem another one their businesses back to a peacetime basis came up. We have what I believe to be and have more time to play they'll be the best-maintained in the playing good sound games. world. Others may want to argue that, Every pro knows that the man who is but I'll stick to it. Our supt., Gerald playing consistently and in reasonably Dearie, suffers the tortures of the damned good figures is going to play golf every when the caddies are on the course and chance he gets. The men who quit golf may mar its carpets of greens, fairway, are the fellows whose scores are so high and rough. And there's no getting and so inconsistent they don't get much away from it, kids now are more careless fun out of the game. than kids were allowed to be when you Wartime Simplified Instruction and I were youngsters. I've found in teaching these men that So that brings up a matter of education better scoring is definitely the result of and discipline to which the boys are re- attending to the very simplest details of jponding well. They either respond or instruction. They are men of very active they know they are imperiling the play- and questioning brains. If you give them ing and instruction privileges of the whole too much detail you arouse their curiosity crowd. past the point their muscles can follow. I've studied these kids quite carefully Most of them were pretty fair baseball trying to determine the reason for the players wnen they were kids and despite somewhat sudden growth of keen interest their sedentary occupations still retain in golf. My conclusion is that Byron Nel- enough of the baseball knack to be able son's record of tournament earnings has to throw the clubhead at and through the had a tremendous influence on the boys. ball. You have youngsters reading that Byron's But when they get thinking about pivot- tournament winnings in a year are around ing, the right elbow close in, the straight $40,000 for playing golf and you have left, and many other details to be re- those youngsters ambitious to be the Nel- garded in the intensive instruction and sons of years to come. It was the same performance of the low player way with kids and baseball when Ruth or the pro, they get tangled up. was drawing a huge salary. And what In trying to prepare for successful con- Negro kid didn't want to be another Joe version in the pro department I gave Louis ? considerable time to women's instruction I've seen in my shop an interesting also. It looks to me, from indications at reflection of the kids' imitation of Nelson. Edgewater and from what I hear in talk- I carried visors for some years, putting ing to other pros, that in the first five most of them back into storage each years after the war there will be ten winter. But in the past two seasons, with pretty good women golfers for every one Byron wearing a visor, the kids keep we had in 1940. buying me out of stock. It looks to me like we are just on the verge of really getting going in women's A lot of these lads show promise of golf. Two things probably give this hunch being quite good golfers. Many of them a solid foundation. Women generally are will grow up to be fine businessmen and getting more athletic. Girls and young possibly members of the club where they women don't come to the lesson tee as once caddied. We've got a famous prece- muscle-bound and as awkward as they did dent for that. Chick Evans, who used to 28 years ago when I became a pro. It be a caddie at Edgewater now is an hon- also is true that the pros are not as awk- ored member of the club. Another and ward in teaching women as they used to much more recently honored caddie is be. One of the very noticeable advances Jack Atten, a promising youngster who in pro golf during the past ten years, in used to caddy for Chick and who is now my opinion, is the improvement in the following in his footsteps. Jack was made fine art of women's golf instruction. an associate member of Edgewater just recently. That seemed to inspire him to Caddie Attitude Improves win his first championship, the Chicago Another signal of conversion to peace- District GA Junior closed title. time golf not being far away is in the When the da^s come when our caddies caddie attitude toward the game. This has are successful young businessmen, they'll been very plain' evident at Edgewater. be buying from the man who taught them Even though our location is good for get- golf. They're part of my reconversion ting caddies we had our difficulties. plan.