Something In the Air

1991: Tiger Woods wins his sixth Junior World title at Torrey Pines. Photo: Rick Dole/USGA

Casper might have been a pro baseball player because that was his first love. "I started caddieing when I was 11, and my parents divorced when I was 13," Casper says. "I earned my own money every week. I couldn't follow baseball as I got older, because you had to play American Legion ball and the games were played on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Those were big days at the golf course caddieing, and I had to choose which way I was going to go. I chose golf, fortunately."

Not that Casper's teenage years were all toil and trouble. "We really had some fun times," he says. "Chula Vista was very sparse in population. We used to tee off the first tee at San Diego CC and play it to Chub's Pool Hall, which was downtown Chula Vista. The last part, you hit over the library, down an alley and then in the back door. We played to a spitoon on the south side of the pool room."

There were plenty of characters and cash around San Diego through the years. (In 1930 Gene Sarazen won the then unheard-of sum of $10,000 for taking the Agua Caliente Open just across the border in Tijuana.) Seven years younger than Casper, Rodgers learned the intricacies of the short game from Paul Runyan after the 1934 and '38 PGA champion became the pro at La Jolla. To increase Rodgers' feel, Runyan made him play blindfolded sometimes. Rodgers learned about gambling and odds by caddieing for (LoBall) Johnny Wilson. "Gambling at golf is all about using psychology and human nature to your advantage," Rodgers told Golf Digest in 2003, "and by age 13 these things were instinctive to me."

Unlike a boy wonder such as Rodgers, Joe Simpson didn't play golf until he was stationed in the Marines in San Diego in 1951. Simpson became an elementary school teacher and supplemented his income playing the trumpet in the summer. He still had plenty of time to develop into a scratch golfer and introduce sons Scott and Dave to the game. For many years Simpson was a member at Stardust CC, a semi-private course that hosted the San Diego tour stop five times in the 1960s. "You can't imagine the characters that were down there," Joe Simpson says. "One fellow—I won't say his name—was more adept at cheating than anyone else I've ever met or heard of. Greasing the club, moving his ball, finding 'lost' balls—he had all the tricks. He was a good player, too. I don't see why he had to do all that stuff."

Simpson kept his game sharp by playing against younger competition. "In those days, back in the '60s and '70s, I don't think my wife knew exactly how much money I played for," Joe says. "We had a group, 15 to 20 guys on the weekends, and eight or 10 even during the week. You'd be playing four or five individual bets, then you and another fellow would be playing team bets, all $5 nassaus with automatic presses. It could add up to quite a bit of money. I was a very consistent player though, and never really lost that much."

Simpson won the San Diego County match-play championship 20 years apart, in 1964 and 1984. He played in four U.S. Senior Opens and five straight U.S. Senior Amateurs, advancing to the quarterfinals twice, the semifinals twice and the final once. "Lost on the 19th hole when I three-putted," he says of his 1989 runner-up finish to Bo Williams.

As a parent Simpson grew familiar with the San Diego Junior Golf Association, one of the forerunners of youth golf programs. Weary of shuttling local kids to Los Angeles to compete, in 1952 John Brown founded the SDJGA and was its president for 33 years. Lou Smith ran the day-to-day operations for 32 years.

"The best organization I have ever been near," says Joe, now 78, whose sons began playing SDJGA events when Scott was 10 and Dave was 9. Association rules called for parents not to watch their children play, although it encouraged them to work as volunteers, scoring for other kids or the like. Most did. Some didn't.

"Jack Renner's father would never score or anything," says Joe. "He would drive around the outside of the golf course and use binoculars to find out what Jack was doing. Then when he got in, he could critique him and he would practice for a couple of hours."