San Antonio, Texas in the mid-1980s - I was on my last career assignment with the US Air Force. Julieann, our son Tyler and I lived on Randolph Air Force Base there in some really comfortable old Spanish style officer quarters.
I had laid off golf for a few years while attending grad school and working some terrific but intense jobs. I found out the course on the air base was very inviting, my work represented pretty regular week day hours and I had a bunch of colleagues who played so I decided to get back in the game. It was a once a week thing for a few of us and I found a good set of used irons to add to my bag.
They were Ray Cook "Affluent" irons. Ray was a noted San Antonio golf club inventor and entrepreneur. I got what I thought was a pretty good deal on them at around $150. The shafts were "stiff," meaning you had to have a pretty fast swing to properly compress the golf ball and the combination of speed and shaft flexibility would give you more distance on your shots. The irons were also noteworthy for having offset heads and I liked the way I hit them. I was still young enough to handle them so I was in business. The set did include one club I was unfamiliar with though...a "1" iron. I would not find out until much later that most golfers didn't carry one and that they were also known as a "driving iron."My standard swing back then for distance irons and woods was to go at it as hard as I could. That meant I had a lot of fairly spectacular hits...and plenty of misses. Playing strictly by the rules and only on weekends my scoring average was somewhere in the 90's...not terrible but nothing to write home to mom about either. It also meant I could hit the 1 iron...just often enough to keep me wanting more. It enabled a higher trajectory than a "3" wood for me too which meant I could use it to carry trees when recovering from my frequent errant drives.
The Affluents with their brother, "1 iron" travelled with me to Sacramento when I retired from the Air Force and I continued to swing it often. I was in my early 40's and had enough swing speed to continue making good contact. It was a good 250-yard club give or take, sometimes giving, often taking.
Then the one iron broke, right at the heel. I wasn't ready to quit it and it wasn't available in Sacramento so I called an old Air Force pal in San Antonio, Bob Bunker and asked him to buy me a replacement and ship it to me. He did and I played with it for another ten years before I slowed down and bought a set of regular flex Pings.
I got rid of the Affluents and some other old clubs in a garage sale or at Goodwill I don't remember which. Then a few years later, I came under the grip of nostalgia and would occasionally hit up eBay to see if an old 1 iron was lurking somewhere. A couple of weeks ago I found one and it is now here in my office. I believe I will try it out on the driving range just for grins after I have it regripped as the old one is kind of slippery. It doesn't really matter if it works or not though as it will now occupy a place of honor in my mini-man cave. Hell, I may even eventually use it as a cane!
But once in a while...once in a while I'll haul it out to the patio to keep me company while I smoke a stogie, sip a port and reminisce. It's never too late to have a happy childhood or, for that matter relive it right?!
