‘Golf is so different now than it used to be.’

Harry McCarthy has been chasing, hitting, coaching others to hit, and selling the little white ball for more than 55 years. He was born in New Jersey, but he was raised in West Palm Beach, Fla., where he began caddying at age 13. At 15, he left home with his golf bag and the promise of a summer job in New York state. By 21, he was a country club pro. He managed a driving range on El Cajon Boulevard in the ‘40s at the site later occupied by the Campus Drive-In. Then he became golf pro at the Balboa Park golf course pro shop and wound up working there seven days a week for 30 years. The thrill of his career came in 1982 when he was voted Southern California “Professional of the Year” by the PGA pros, and he retired last month at age 70. But you can often find him--wearing matching sky blue golf shirt, sweater, slacks and socks--at the clubhouse. He says it’s home. Times staff writer Nancy Reed interviewed him, and Dave Gatley took his photograph.

I started the hard way. I used to pick up range balls for five cents a bucket after school and knock the ball back into the fairway and pick them up.

I was caddying nine holes for 35 cents, charged 10 cents if I lost a ball, and playing afterward for 25 cents.

A friend and I heard that a country club in Palm Beach had closed up their golf course. There were cups on the greens but no flags, and the first round I played I shot a 105, with no tee markers. It just kept getting more and more interesting. I was in my first tournament at about 15, it was match play with two big hefty policemen. It was kind of a joke--that we would get in trouble if we beat them, but we won the flight.

In 1958, I qualified for the national PGA. I went back to Pennsylvania, and the U.S. Royal Company wanted me to play their ball. I told them I would. On the second day of the tournament, I changed to a Titleist ball and I had a hole in one. Royal would have paid me $1,000 for a hole in one. Titleist didn’t pay anything. The fella says, “Hey--I’m sorry, we don’t pay anything, but from my heart, I am going to give you these two bottles of bourbon.”

Golf is so different now than it used to be. There used to be only two or four club manufacturers--now they pop out all over. And golf balls--there was only a few top-grade balls at that time--like Spalding Dot. At one time, the golf club business was big business. Now, it’s the clothing business--it’s gone from golf clubs to rags. My last 10 years it got to be kind of tough, I couldn’t compete with the discount stores.

It’s changed from the days of walking the course. When pull carts came out, people used to laugh--it looked so funny to see somebody pull a cart. Then all of sudden we started with caddies and into the golf cart business--that is big business these days.

We were real small; it is like a Mom and Pop store, you don’t rent a lot of golf carts. We have a lot of retired people on fixed incomes.

I was running golf tournaments, selling merchandise and going to club meetings. But I really enjoyed teaching junior golf.

I remember one time I was giving a golf lesson, and this fella, I told him to take the club back and hold it. He must not have understood me, because when I walked back he took a downswing and broke my right foot. It laid me up for a couple of months just when I was set to play in the San Diego Open.

In the 30 years I have been here, maybe I played three times a month. Most young fellas today have got the idea that if they go into the golf business, it’s going to be fun, playing golf all the time. It’s a regular business. There are two kind of professionals--there is a club professional and a touring professional.

It’s very unusual now to get into it the way I did. They still have caddies in La Costa, but they are grown men.

I remember when I had a job in Vermont at Sudbury, a private club, a big hotel, and I had to go out and round up some caddies. The club had been closed, and I got working on it and got it going back. But I had to dig up some caddies. All I could dig up were some farm kids.

I asked the golfers after they finished the round how it went. After about five or six holes, the caddies wanted to know when it was their turn to hit the ball.