Rocky Marciano Meets the Golf Ball

By Colman McCarthy

It was a summer afternoon of 1958 at the Sands Point Golf Club on the north shore of Long Island when I met the great Rocky Marciano. I was college boy of 19, Rocky was 35 and only a few years out of the ring. Sands Point was accustomed to hosting celebrities, what with Perry Como and Rex Harrison being members along with lesser lights like Governor Averell Harriman, but this was the first time anyone could recall that a prizefighter was on the grounds.

.Hardly anyone was on the course—the club had less than 100 members—but coming off the green of the 2nd hole I saw Rocky about to tee off on the 3rd hole. It was a par three, about 190 yds., over a deep sand trap guarding the green. I had to wonder why Rocky and his foursome were still on the tee, with the whole course wide open in front of them. It didn’t take long to learn why. It was Rocky.

When it came his turn to swing, he was all but paralyzed over the ball.

He had taken several practice swings—more swats than swings really, his muscles waving the club as if it were a bandleader’s baton and he was shaking it at the brass section to play louder. As Rocky finally calmed himself and rested the club behind the teed-up ball, he was no longer the mighty puncher of men but a mere mortal at the mercy of the god’s of golf. The ball was now the terror, not the Brown Bomber or Archie Moore ready to swing back at Rocky’s jaw. The ball was small, motionless. What was frightening about that to the Brockton Blockbuster?, I wondered.

I had to restrain myself from rushing over to hug Rocky and tell him it was okay, there’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s only a golf ball. It doesn’t swing back. It won’t knock you out. Then it came to me. The ball had metaphysical power, perhaps more frightening than physical power. Golf balls trade in humiliation. Golf balls damage the ego. Golf balls flatten the proud, well before the count of ten..

Breaking out of his paralysis, Rocky finally drew back the club. He paused at the top of the backswing, his weight shifting to his right side as if he were about to come in with an uppercut as his body moved to the left. Instead of an explosion of power, the result of all those thousands of hours in the gym and all the bloodied bouts in small town rings and big nights in the Garden, Rocky hit the ball only halfway to the green. It was almost a love-tap, not the haymaker I expected.

As the rest of the foursome took their turns, Rocky moved to the side of the tee where I was standing. If I said “nice shot” he would know I was patronizing him. If I said “that was pathetic” it would be somewhat less than collegial and certainly not clublike. So I stayed neutral and asked, one golfer to another, “what club did you hit?” “Five iron,” he said. “Shoulda hit a four.”

That, I said, was what I would try. “Yeah,” he said, “go with a four.”

The last player hit and Rocky ambled on to find his ball. And swing again.

Hope your Dad likes this.

In friendship,

Colman McCarthy