Short Game : Chick Epstein Brings Golf to a New Generation With Camp for Youngsters

On summer weekdays at 9:45 a.m. an army of kids storms into the driving-range area at Balboa and Encino golf courses armed with golf bags and lunch boxes looking for their general, Alan “Chick” Epstein.

They range in age from 7 to 17--the majority of them in the younger half.

Some of the youngest carry golf bags that are nearly as tall and heavy as they are, stuffed with hand-me-down clubs that have been sitting in the garage unused since long before they were born.

Others wear oversized baseball caps with their ears protruding, T-shirts that are four sizes too big and shorts that droop down near their ankles.

All have come to play golf, some of them for the first time, in Epstein’s Fairways Golf Camp--an instructional golf day camp run by the longtime Birmingham High football and golf coach.

Epstein, who retired from football after 17 years when the 1994 season came to a close but still coaches golf as he has for 29 years, started the camp in 1986 as a way for him to avoid teaching summer school.

“I wanted some sort of sports camp,” said Epstein, a former baseball player at UCLA who competed in football, baseball and track during his high school days. “But there were already so many different baseball and football camps.”

“I’ve always been a golf nut, so I went with a golf camp. There was nothing like that in the area.”

Since then it has blossomed into a highly successful camp, running in two-week sessions throughout the summer and attracting as many as 50 golfers each session.

Each morning, the campers split into groups based on age and ability. Eight to 10 counselors--which include the likes of former Braemar Country Club teaching professional Carlos Rodriguez, the nephew of Chi Chi Rodriguez, and several college and high school players from the area--lead the campers through a series of work stations.

The stations include instruction on basics such as grip and club position as well as advanced shot-making techniques and video swing analysis.

Sometimes, the campers tend to lose focus during the lessons.

As many as 30 clubs waggle back and forth trying to practice details discussed 10 minutes earlier as the counselors deliver new instructions. A chipping lesson erupts into a gymnastics show when some of the girls begin turning cartwheels as they await their turn.

Even seemingly simple tasks turn into an event. Epstein divides a group of kids into foursomes and asks for a captain in each foursome. Every person raises his or her hand to volunteer, then when the oldest in each group is selected captain, others begin claiming to be assistant captain and assistant to the assistant.

Trying to line up the kids by height is another circus.

“You’re taller than her!” cries out one young voice. “I’m taller than you!” says another.

Their attention spans, as happens with kids this age, are short.

“The younger they are, the harder it is to teach them,” said Marc Falkenstein, a 15-year-old Crespi student who attended the camp for five years and is in his first year as a counselor. “They listen for a minute and then do something else.”

After a midday lunch break, the older and more advanced golfers are turned loose to play nine holes. The others remain behind for additional instruction and contests with golf balls as the prizes.

While organizing groups that will play the course one afternoon, Epstein discovers that he has one too many people for the number of golfers the starter has allotted him. He asks for volunteers to sit out but nobody offers.

He settles the dilemma by telling everyone to guess a number between 1 and 100, the person closest having to sit out. Nine-year-old Rebecca Holtzman guesses the number on the nose, and walks back to the rest of the group close to tears.

“I really wanted to play,” she says. “My brother is playing and he got to play yesterday too.”

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Epstein, after 17 years of coaching football, still retains some of the old habits. He stresses discipline, barks out orders and calls all of the campers by their last names.

But there are differences as well. For one thing, he doesn’t carry a whistle. And his lessons are a bit easier to understand.

“I had to change faces,” he said of the transition. “I had to talk their talk. A lot of them don’t know what parallel and perpendicular lines are so I have to talk about pointing to the sky, railroad tracks and swinging an elephant trunk.”

He conducts a driving contest, patiently watching each youngster swing. He offers each golfer advice, while constantly keeping an eye on the other campers who have started imitating Happy Gilmore--a movie character played by Adam Sandler who gets a running start from behind the ball before giving it a whack.

“This is fun,” Epstein said. “They have a wonderful time. Hitting a golf ball straight is really an accomplishment. It’s what keeps them coming back.”

Each Tuesday and Thursday, the campers board a school bus headed for a local golf course to play a round. The bus ride is filled with patty-cake games and loud conversations filled with words like “cool” and “awesome.” Some of the girls poke the boys in front of them with tees and pull their hair.

“For the counselors, the bus rides are the worst part of the camp,” said Epstein, who drove the bus for the first five years of the camp. “But for the kids it’s part of the fun.”

The most fun for Epstein is teaching a youngster who has never touched a club before arriving at his camp to hit the ball consistently by the end of two weeks.

One such golfer in the current session is Matt Miller, an 11-year-old Van Nuys resident who is intelligent beyond his years.

Miller was not just inexperienced in golf before arriving at Fairways camp. He had never played any sport. He has always been more interested in computers and making money.

He showed up for a recent trip to Vista Valencia golf course carrying a torn red nylon golf bag containing only a five-iron, a pitching wedge and a putter.

He collected $2.25 he had loaned out for sodas earlier in the week, borrowed a ball and some tees and prepared to take on a the par-three course--his first time on a golf course.

“I think a lot of CEOs and presidents of companies know a thing or two about golf,” Miller said of his decision to take up the sport.

Nicknamed “the businessman” by his playing partners, Miller estimated his score to be near 40 after five holes and appeared frustrated.

“I want to go home,” he said after the fifth hole.

When asked to comment about how he was playing he replied: “Like I want to do that. My mother would hang me if I told you how I really felt.”

Michele Rodway, a 14-year-old from Studio City, will be a freshman at Louisville High. She wants to make the golf team.

“Before I came to golf camp I was really bad,” said Rodway, now in her fourth year at the camp. “Now [Carlos Rodriguez] said he will make me good enough to make the team at Louisville.”

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Others have even bigger ambitions, such as Laura McNair of Woodland Hills, a 9-year-old with a swing some pros would envy.

“If I really wanted to be a pro golfer I could be,” she said. “I started when I was 6 so I could be a pro when I’m 21.”

Still others say that the camp isn’t just about learning to golf.

“The best thing about the camp, besides the golf, is that you get to bug the boys,” said 12-year-old Lizzy Lazar.”

But no matter what the reason for attending, Lazar summed up best the true values of the camp.

“By the end of two weeks even people who just came here are going to be really good golfers,” she said. “Golf is very educational and you get to meet a lot of new people. And it teaches you about things like fractions and angles . . . and betting.”