By Tom Mackin
The course is long gone now, destroyed by a storm in early 1992. Just a distant memory. But it was the first one I ever played. Severely undulating greens. Sand to be avoided at all costs. Wind often whipping off the nearby ocean. The right price, too. $1 for 30 holes.
Yes, it was a miniature golf layout, one I frequented as a child in the late 1960s and into my teenage years in the early 1980s. Naturally, it finished with an elevated tee shot that fed your brightly colored ball into the mouth of a giant fish – hit it down the right pipe and you were pretty much guaranteed a hole-in-one.
That was my introduction to golf, right there on the boardwalk at 16th Avenue in Belmar, N.J., in the heart of my beloved Jersey Shore. All these years later, it’s still one of my favorite summer memories. From time to time, I’ll watch a grainy home movie (the one you see here) that captures one of those rounds as I was scheming – alright, cheating – in a fruitless effort to beat my father. He’s the one who first put a putter in my hand, along with some plastic toy clubs I used around the backyard of the house my Irish-born grandparents bought in nearby Spring Lake Heights in the early 1950s. He got me hooked on the game so much as a kid that I even built a less-than-rudimentary, four-hole layout encircling the house, complete with two tiny bunkers filled with sand that may or may not have been pilfered from a local beach. My first and only course design.
Another shared golf memory I have with my father is watching televised golf on ABC in our living room on many Sunday afternoons. I can still hear the jazzy/disco intro – “Love’s Theme” by the Love Unlimited Orchestra. Curious choice, that. But those opening notes meant we were about to escape into a fantasy world, utterly different from the urban streets of Bayonne, where he and I both grew up in the very same house. The existence of a legit, albeit private, golf course, Bayonne Golf Club, in our hometown since 2006 still blows me away.
But during those summers down the Shore, everything was indeed all right. A day spent riding the waves at the beach, followed by a backyard barbecue. Then, if I was lucky, a short drive back to the boardwalk with my parents for a round of mini-golf, followed by an ice cream cone. I’m not saying I get all Rory-winning-the-Masters-emotional thinking about those days, but man, what I wouldn’t trade for just one more of those.
Like most people who grew up in North Jersey, the Shore was our summer destination. As my friends and I got a bit older and more into golf, we eventually began playing courses across Monmouth County. Places like Hominy Hill in Colts Neck, Howell Park in Howell Township, Bel-Aire in Wall Township, and Shark River in Neptune Township. There was also Cruz Farms and Spring Meadow, both in Farmingdale. And more recently, Charleston Springs in Millstone. I will always argue that Monmouth County offers one of the best collections of municipal golf in the country. Getting a tee time is a whole other story, but still.
Yet it wasn’t all just 18-holers or mini-golf. I also remember more than a few summer nights when two of my cousins and I would visit Quail Ridge Golf World on Route 34 in Wall Township. We’d each buy a giant green plastic bucket of balls and try to smash them far enough to reach the tree line in the distance or play the pitch & putt course there under the lights.
We didn’t know, or even care at that point, about the stellar lineup of private courses in the area. Beyond our reach, anyway. Places like Spring Lake Golf Club, Deal, Hollywood, Navesink, Due Process, Eagle Oaks, Manasquan River. I do remain willing and ready to play any of them (ahem).
Unfortunately, the rounds my father and I shared never advanced beyond the Belmar boardwalk. He died in 1978 when he was just 55, betrayed by a body that never truly operated at full strength throughout his life. I was 13 then, and well, you can imagine how that changed my world. Neither Father’s Day each June, nor summers down the Shore, were ever the same again.
It still stings to never know what kind of golfer he was. A long hitter? Good short game? Savvy green reader? I do have some of his early-1950s golf clubs tucked away in my garage, including a laminated maple Wilson Strokemaster driver and barassie (Model 4250), plus a Bulls Eye putter. I often mean to bring the latter with me on a golf trip. But he’s been right there with me in spirit during my golf adventures around the world.
I wish I had more time with him, of course. I wish I could remember the sound of his voice. I wish he could have met my wife, Jennifer. I wish he could have seen me playing sports, including golf with my godson, Ronan. Or that he could read all the stories I have written. I wish. I wish.
When people learn that I write frequently about golf, they often ask who would be in my dream foursome. I know they expect me to name some famous pro golfers. Fair enough. But no. I’d rather it be a twosome, just my father and I, on an endless loop around a miniature golf course on a boardwalk down the Shore.
After all, we have a lot to catch up on.
Based in Scottsdale, Ariz., Tom Mackin is a proud Bayonne, N.J. native who has been writing about golf travel for 25 years. You can usually find him in seat 21D on a United flight.