My Shot: Evel Knievel

I figure I've lost close to half a million dollars on the golf course, most of the time to cheaters. See, the honest games are small games. Big money is what attracts the thieves, and it was well known I played for big money. In hindsight, the solution would have been to bring a lie detector, hook the people up, and start counting backward from 20. When you reach the number that doesn't set off the lie detector, that's their handicap.

I spent a short time in Mira Loma prison for hurting a guy with a baseball bat. He'd written some stuff in an unauthorized biography about me that was completely untrue. To make life in the joint a little easier, a friend of mine dropped off my big Sam Snead golf bag and bright yellow shoes, which were given to me by Doug Sanders. My friend set them at the side of the freeway near the field where I worked, and a guard retrieved them for me. I hit balls for several days, striping irons and drivers across this field. People driving by would honk, wave and shout at me. It must have been a strange sight, Evel Knievel playing golf in an orange prison jump suit and bright yellow golf shoes. Well, one of the passersby reported me to the authorities, outraged that I was treating the prison like a country club. I was transferred to the Los Angeles County Jail, where I was put in a cell next to Charles Manson, who used to give me the evil eye, but he didn't scare me one bit. That was a miserable place. I regretted hitting balls in that field. I should have hung out at the putting green next to the field that was built for the prison officers. I never would have gotten in trouble, and frankly, my short game really needed work.

Golf brings out the best in a good man and the worst in a bad man.

And in for a smooth landing...

When you get injured, it's important to get back on your feet as soon as possible. After I broke my back and leg in a jump in San Francisco in 1972, I recovered by playing golf. I went up to Winged Foot in New York, where Claude Harmon was the pro. I was still on crutches and really couldn't hit my driver, but my irons were fine. I was in a mood to gamble, and Doug Sanders was around. Doug would play for anything. We went at it, with the stipulation that I didn't have to hit a drive. Claude would put my ball down at the 150-yard marker, and I'd play the hole from there, lying one. Well, I lost $40,000. Doug left to play in a tournament upstate, but he missed the cut and came back to Winged Foot for more action. Claude was the best sand player I ever saw, and a great teacher. He gave me a bunker lesson while Doug was gone, and when Doug came back I won $50,000—the amount I lost and a bit more. I was always grateful to Claude for that lesson.

If you don't want to play for anything, I won't play with you. Gambling is part of being a man. If you don't have guts enough to play for something, I question your manliness. You should just stay in your element, and I'll stay in mine.

Golf was spiritual for me. I loved being around the trees, the sun, the water and fresh air. It was like being next to God. But that changed on a day two years ago when I played at my home course, Butte Country Club in Montana. I got into a money game with four other guys. I knew three of them, and the fourth, they said, carried a 12-handicap. The stranger birdied the first hole. On the second hole I caught him stepping behind his ball in the rough and claimed the hole. He parred the third hole, and on the fourth, he hit his approach one inch from the hole. At that point I really smelled a rat. I drove my cart over to the four guys. "Gentlemen, for all intents and purposes, this game is over. If you think you have money coming and want to discuss it, I'll be waiting in the parking lot with a .44 magnum." They didn't show up, of course. I learned later that all four men had set the game up in a bar the night before we played. That day broke my spirit, to realize that friends would try to take advantage of friends like that. I'm just now beginning to find the urge to play again. When I do, it will be with friends. And we won't bet thousands of dollars, we'll play to see who buys dinner.

You get the idea some players would rather take a bullet than sign autographs. They need to think about when they were kids and had heroes, and how they would have felt if their hero had told them, "Go to hell, kid; I ain't got time." They need a refresher course on the fact that, whether you're jumping motorcycles, playing golf or juggling in a circus, it's all about the fans.

Given a choice between being a pro golfer and doing what I did for a living, I'll take what I did. It's a good feeling, earning your own money, playing for your own stakes. Pros play for someone else's money. It's almost unbelievable the way they can choke when they literally have nothing to lose.

No doubt about it, I've choked on the golf course. But I'll tell you, as great as the pressure was, it was nothing compared to some of those jumps I made. When your life is at stake, you find out what real choking is. Eventually I lost my nerve to jump. Even if I were physically able to get back on my motorcycle and jump, I couldn't do it. Your nervous system can only take so much, and mine is shot to hell.

As for golf, I'm ready to play again. I have a bad pulmonary disease, and there's no cure. The doctors have given me three years. My lungs are hardening, and the damned part of that is, I never smoked a cigarette in my life. But I'm ready. I'll bring my oxygen tank, and we'll play for a thousand. You up to it?