68
September 2010
www.insidegolf.com.auLASTWORD .....................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Inside: Larry’s brain
LarryCanning
LOUIS Oosthuizen. If you say it 10
times it sounds like a song out of The
Sound of Music. “Louis… a name... I
call myself…Oosthuizen a long, long
word to say”.
I have seen a name very similar to
this on old British Open footage. I
think his name was Andres Ooster-something and he nearly holed a 1-iron
for a 2 and a double eagle in a British
Open highlight package from the 70’s.
He was the dead spit of Greg Norman.
His shot lands way short of the green
and seems to take minutes to slowly
track towards the hole. The famous
Henry Longhurst is commentating
and with a voice sounding remarkably
like Sir David Attenborough begins
explaining how unusual it is to spot
an albatross in these locations. I don’t
know if Ooster-bunny won anything of
note but for some reason that image is
firmly imprinted into my brain.
It’s not the only useless trivial image
I have tucked away in my cranial filing
cabinet. I have hundreds of ridiculous
images that keep finding their way
into the front part of my brain. That’s
where my face is.
As you can probably imagine, some
of the stuff I have filed away in the
grey matter is pretty out there – like
the first time I saw Greg Norman. He
was waiting for me on the first tee
at Ryde Parramatta Golf Course in
Sydney. He was 20 and I was 16. It was
a trainee match, which was a once a
week tournament where apprentice
golf pros tried to add enough coin to
their paltry $35 weekly wage to buy a
six pack of Tooths KB. If you won one
of the larger purses you could maybe
afford a bottle of Porfrey Pearl as well.
In the seventies, a bottle of this fine
bubbly could well be the difference
between a kiss on the cheek and the
need to find a chemist.
As I approached the tee I saw a
6-foot-2 cross between Rocky Balboa
and Billy Idol with sideburns, leaning
on his driver. He was a human triangle.
Two average sized Samoan bouncers
could have sat on each of his shoulders.
I wondered if his unique physique
might have hindered his swing… until
he hit his first drive. His tee flew past
my drive on the full.
His caddy was a mate of his who
later became a mate of mine named
Doug Murray. Doug was also a trainee
but he couldn’t play because he had
been injured. Norman had given him
a bear hug and cracked his rib. Going
down the third hole, Doug told me
Norman had just ordered a new set
of clubs from PGF and he asked for
35 pound shafts to be put in them.
I was a bit of a golf equipment geek
and I had a fair idea what this meant.
Back in 1975, when men were men,
women were women and Margaret
Whitlam was a combination of both,
golf shafts came in pounds. I thought
it was how hard you could smash them
into a tree before they would break,
but apparently it was the measure of
weight needed to bend them to some
specific point. 29 pound was regular,
31: medium stiff, 33: stiff and 35:
porn star!
being an obnoxious little brat. Hearny
would politely go about his business
without battering a single eyelid. I
wonder if he had any.
We were drawn together in the
Roseville Gold Mashie once and both
having a pretty tough day. By the time
we got to the 14th tee, Hearny had
suffered every morsel of crappy luck
Roseville Golf Course could muster —
but as usual was remaining unfazed.
His 1-iron tee shot to this brutal
blind par- 3 was hit straight at the pin;
actually there was a coloured brick
on the hill which was allegedly the
perfect line and Hearny’s ball sailed
straight over it. Mine was a chunky,
ordinary and overly safe shot left of
the brick, which was probably going
to be short. When we strode over the
knoll to see the result there was a ball
on the front of the green and nothing
else. “Damn, Chris, yours could be
in!” I shouldn’t have said, but did. He
took off as fast as his little legs could
carry him straight to the cup only to
peer in and shake his head.
