Caddie Shack : The Ball Is Still Round but Now It’s a Lot Smaller for Lynn Shackelford

SIMI VALLEY — After patching his slashed finger with a band-aid, a man wearing dark sunglasses approached Lynn Shackelford and offered an unsolicited testimonial.

“This is what I like about you,” he said as if he had known the former UCLA basketball standout for years. “You are so prepared. What other golf course would have band-aids?”

Probably all of them, but the idea that he got one from the starter at the Sinaloa Golf Course in Simi Valley, a par-three course managed and operated by Shackelford, somehow impressed the fellow.

Shackelford, seated at a table in Sinaloa’s small clubhouse, smiled sheepishly and nodded as the man proudly showed off his callused hands.

The man said he had seen photos of hands like his in a golf book written by Ben Hogan. The legendary champion had written that such hands reflected the wear and tear caused by using the correct grip on a club.

Enough finally said, the man eventually left.

Shackelford, 47, leaned back on his chair and laughed. While dealing with the public, he encounters all types.

Chatterboxes who wear sunglasses indoors might be outrageous, but they are not unusual.

That’s why he is always prepared.

*

Without realizing it, the stranger who bent Shackelford’s ear hit the target squarely when he mentioned that the former UCLA forward was “prepared.”

Preparedness is an inveterate side of Shackelford’s personality, a trait he developed while playing for John Wooden at UCLA when the Bruins were winning national titles in bunches.

To Wooden, who won 10 NCAA championships in his 27 seasons at Westwood, preparation was the fabric for success.

“Wooden influenced me so much,” Shackelford said. “He believed that success would take care of itself if you were organized and prepared. He was a teacher, a person who educated young people.”

He also could coach a little, and Shackelford, among others, flourished in his program.

Shackelford arrived at UCLA in the fall of 1965 after a distinguished career at Burroughs High in Burbank, where he averaged 25.5 points his senior season and was an All-American. He torched opponents with an awkward-looking left-handed shot that he launched with his wrist cocked just below his ear.

His goal was to play at UCLA, a desire further buoyed when the Bruins won their first national title in 1963-64 with a record of 30-0--marking only the seventh time since modern-era records were started in 1937-38 that a college team had gone undefeated in a season.

“I was at the right place at the right time,” Shackelford said. “They [Bruins] wanted me long before Lew Alcindor [later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar] decided to play there.”

Even before they joined forces on the varsity in 1966-67, Alcindor and Shackelford teamed with Lucius Allen and Kenny Heitz, among others, to form one of the most-powerful freshman teams ever. With the 7-foot-1 Alcindor dominating at center, the 6-5 Shackelford at shooting forward and the 6-3 Allen at point guard, the UCLA freshmen regularly hammered their opponents in 1965-66.

Their most-impressive victory, a prelude to the sensational seasons ahead, was against UCLA’s varsity, the defending national champion. The freshmen defeated the varsity, spawning a popular joke that the Bruins were No. 1 in the country but No. 2 on campus.

“It was kind of embarrassing to beat the varsity,” Shackelford said. “Poor Gary Cunningham was the [freshman] coach and he didn’t know whether to be happy or what. Wooden never made that mistake again.”

He probably couldn’t have if he wanted to. For the next three seasons, Wooden had those players on the varsity.

“We were supposed to win every game,” Shackelford said. “It was pretty well determined when we were freshmen that we would contend for the national championship.”

The predictions came to pass.

In 1966-67, Shackelford averaged 11.4 points, shot 46% and helped the Bruins to a 30-0 record and their third national title.

The next season, UCLA opened with 12 consecutive victories, running its unbeaten streak to 47 games before Houston and Elvin Hayes stopped it on Jan. 20, 1968 with a 71-69 upset in front of a national television audience and 52,693 at the Astrodome.

In a rematch, Shackelford scored 17 points, helping the Bruins dismantle Houston, 101-69, in the NCAA tournament semifinals on March 22 at the Sports Arena. Shackelford’s defensive assignment was to shadow Hayes in a diamond-and-one scheme with Mike Lynn and Allen on the wings, Mike Warren at the point and Alcindor under the basket. Hayes, who averaged 36.8 points that season, scored only 10 points.

“He was to dog him all over the floor,” Wooden said of Shackelford. “He probably did as fine a job as he ever had.”

The Bruins won the title the next night against North Carolina, 78-55, and Shackelford was voted to the all-tournament team with Alcindor, Allen, Warren and Tar Heel captain Larry Miller.

The loss to Houston was one of only two suffered by UCLA during Shackelford’s three seasons, during which the Bruins won 88 games. The other was a 46-44 Pac-8 shocker against USC on March 8, 1969--the first defeat for the Bruins at Pauley Pavilion.

The setback was a reality check for the Bruins on the road to their third consecutive NCAA championship.

But it wasn’t easy. The Bruins had to squeeze past Drake, 85-82, in the NCAA tournament semifinals at Louisville before beating Purdue, 92-72, for the title behind Alcindor’s 37 points. Shackelford scored 11 points and finished with 871, a total that ranks him 45th on the UCLA career scoring list.

“Most people remember [Shackelford’s] beautiful, high-arching shots out of the corner,” Wooden said. “His ability to shoot so well complemented Alcindor very well.”

*

College basketball was good to Shackelford, but his experience in the professional ranks turned out differently.

While Alcindor was the No. 1 pick by the Milwaukee Bucks in the 1969 National Basketball Assn. draft, clubs ignored Shackelford until the San Diego Rockets took him in the seventh round, 91st overall. Cut by the Rockets, he signed with the Miami Floridians of the American Basketball Assn. and played in 22 games.

Shackelford then turned to broadcasting and was hired to do color commentary alongside announcer Chick Hearn on Laker games from 1970 to 1977.

Although his playing days were over, Shackelford was enjoying a career with one of the NBA’s top organizations.

“Here I was, a guy in his early 20s, fresh out of school,” Shackelford said. “All of a sudden, I’m traveling with [the Lakers] and I get to be around them day to day. You were traveling first class and going to nice arenas.”

He also was brushing elbows with Hearn, one of pro basketball’s best--and most egotistical--play-by-play announcers.

“When the job opened, they wanted someone who could say, ‘Yes, Chick,’ in so many ways,” Shackelford said. “My relationships with Chick were two: on the air and off the air. He is a perfectionist and he has a control-type personality. It’s his show. Off the air, we got along very well. We sat together on planes and I enjoyed his companionship very much. He was much more relaxed. . . . I learned an awful lot about broadcasting from him.”

After his Laker stint, Shackelford produced the team’s pregame TV shows for Channel 9 and anchored the sports segment on the station’s nightly newscasts. He also worked college basketball games and beach volleyball, which he still does on a limited basis for ESPN.

He shifted gears and went to work in 1983 for American Golf Co., an outfit that manages domestic and foreign golf courses. Shackelford pounded the links looking for new ventures for the company and went on his own in 1993, when he took over Sinaloa.

“The thought occurred to me that I was acquiring all these golf courses for American Golf and I knew they were making money, so I thought it would be fun to have my own course,” said Shackelford, a member of his high school golf team. “Being in business for yourself consumes probably more energy than I thought it would take. It’s a 24-hour job. But you are more in control of your life.”

Shackelford commutes to Sinaloa from his home in Pacific Palisades. He recently signed a 15-year lease with the Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District to operate the course and is making several improvements to the facility. His 23-year-old son, Geoff, has helped redesign many of the greens and his lease agreement calls for all of them to be renovated.

“I’ve really enjoyed changing the holes around and creating holes that are more challenging,” Shackelford said. “We want to make it more exciting for the players. We want to give them more contour and character.”

Even for characters who wear sunglasses indoors.