The Golf Gypsy: My Mother's Words

The Stapp Family at the Country Club about 1966-67
Jonya, Johnie, Helen, Letty

Monday Evening

(June 1967)

Dear Letty,

Just read your note since your phone call and am I glad Mabel is two doors down from you. (Mabel Hotz was my childhood dream golf mother, and one of the first women inducted into the Oklahoma Golf Hall of Fame.)

Back story:

That Monday, June 5,  I qualified for the Women' Oklahoma State Amateur held at Oakwood Country Club in Enid. However, I did not qualify for Championship Flight and my opportunity to win the state championship dissolved,.  My disappointment led to tears of frustration and for me humiliation. 

I had played golf for two years on the men's golf team at NEO. I held a 2 handicap and could play to it on the difficult MGCC course, but my nerves won that day. I was 19 years old. That evening, from the hotel  room in Enid, I called home, collect, sobbing to my mother. 

NOTE: My researching curiosity won out and I searched for the write up on this State Amateur. We played Oakwood CC at 6,529 yards for that championship. I suppose that comes from not having forward tees. I qualified for President's fight and took runner-up after Jarita Askins beat me 2 and 1. 

I would go on to play in the WOGA Championship in 1968 for the last time as a youngster, who felt the weight of winning for her father, her mother, and every member of the country club.

Mother continues:

Letty, the 91 is no disgrace--golf is just a game for some, but it is a way of life for us, and that is why we take it so seriously. Daddy makes his living at it, but you probably won't and neither will Jonya. Just remember that at the end of the day, being a good sport and associating with all those nice people is most important.

You saw Billy Casper (in Tulsa at Southern Hills) smile when he missed a putt and smiled when his opponents made one--you have been looking for an ideal to follow--I think he would be the one I would choose if I were 19 again. He also does not drink and I want you to be a clean pure girl athlete.

Daddy was at the river fishing when you called. In fact he is not back yet.

Just as you told me you "bombed out" and I was thinking you shot a 110-112 or something like that, Jonya sat down by the phone with blood streaming all over the place. She had used an old razor and sliced about two layers of skin from her ankle. I had to put Merthiolate on it and she yelled so loud that on top of your disappointment I thought I would have a nervous breakdown. 

We are calming down watching TV now and I'm getting my nerves put in their proper place now.

Letty, if you are still nervous tomorrow go to a movie. Maybe Louise (Stekoll Johnson) or Rinda (Koppitz) would like to go with you. It is best to get out of this world sometimes. A good book might do the same therapy. 

None of the Miami players did any good at the Hill Blast  tournament in Bartlesville, But just think Ben Hogan bought Daddy's team and we mingled with movie stars and golf stars for two days. 

Are the Bell's there? Tell them all hello--

I got Dad to stay home all day and he is rested. Now if I could get him to a movie.  I'd really be living. 

Well it's time to put Jonya's T.V. dinner on. She has stopped bleeding.   

Remember darling--the golf does not matter.  It is the gladness of your mind that is really life.   Smile win or lose.

Love,

Mama cita

 (Mother loved to use the Spanish language and thus my sister, Jonya, is fluent in Spanish, and spent her life living out some of Mother's dreams.)

Little did we know that my younger sister, Jonya, would go on to the Oklahoma Junior Girls Championship in 1968 Oklahoma Junior Girls Golf Championship

Luckily, like kids and children do, I lived and learned about life through competitive golf. I, also, became better golfer and competitor as it as I grew into adulthood. 

My mother's letter has traveled with me from Enid, to Ft. Hood, to Kansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and back home to Oklahoma. Her words have never left my heart and to this day I seek a good book or sometimes a movie to escape my worries..

My parents died in 1989 and I miss them everyday, but I must add that Dad has certainly entertained my mind when I am playing golf.  He gave me the nickname of Tizzy, does that tell you something about my scattered brain as teen?  

Golf Gypsy--The Early Years

 

1951 Independence Country club, Independence, Kansas

            North

            West                      East 

             South

The facts are few of my early childhood living on the golf course at the Independence, Ks. Country club, but the stories are full.

My parents were in their mid-thirties when I was born in Arcadia, California in 1947, and a long ways from their Kansas roots in Wichita. In those short years in the late forties both of my grandfather's died in Wichita, Kansas leaving behind two elderly grandmothers. Before long my parents made the decision to move back to Kansas and be closer to home. My mother always told me that when the earthquake that knocked her baby daughter off the bed in California she decided that Kansas and its tornadoes were where her family needed to be, not California.

By 1950 we moved to the small square house, shown above to the right of the water tower and hidden by the trees. Behind and to the right of the house was the working barn for all equipment.  The bowling alley was the long building on the West side, and the golf shop was the building south of the bowling alley.

The clubhouse on the North was magnificent from a child's point of view. The dance floor hosted many a Saturday night dance party. Mother could wear her mink stole to the dances. At Christmas times they decorated trees inside that glittered with icicles. 

The Easter bunny not only came to the country club for all of the boys and girls, but he even came into our house. He was as tall as the door and carried a basket of eggs. I think they were for my new baby sister, Jonya Lea, who had been born December 11, 1951. 

Mother said when came home from the hospital my first words were, "Put her down on the floor so I can play with her." That didn't happen on that day, but later we played outside. My favorite time with her was playing in the sandbox by the golf shop. We had two babysitters, sisters, who often watched us when mom helped dad at the club. One time Paula brought a gift she won in a Cracker Jack box. She quietly secretly took me into a closet. When it was just the right time, she opened her hands and inside was a glow in the dark skull. I screamed with excitement and ate Cracker Jacks for the next decade looking for glow in the dark toys.

Alex, a black man who was shorter and rounder than my father must have been dad's right hand man. When I wanted to learn how to bowl, at age 3-4, Alex set up the bowling alley so that my small body could roll a ball a few yards down the lane. I was always happy in the bowling alley, and the odor of the bowling alley, cigarette smoke and chalk powder, has stayed with me all of my life. Alex let me follow him around the golf shop, too.    

Mother taught me that rolling thunder in the storms was really "the potato man in heaven pushing and dropping cart loads of potatoes to the ground." As proof one day, we drove by a downtown grocery store and outside in a bin were fresh potatoes, arriving after a terrible storm the night before. Yes, the potato man had delivered them. Proof enough for a three year old.  The grocery store was owned by Vivian Vance's father. She was better known as Ethel Mertz on the I Love Lucy Show.  Mother thought that was very special.

Although the golf course was only nine holes, it did have an enormous practice area. The large green to the east of the clubhouse was part of my playground. Dad allowed me to putt and roll golf balls with my hands, but never to run on the green. With a golf club in my hand, I tramped around the rolling golf course alone or with the caddies. Playing golf kept me busy outside and near my father. 

1952 August 9

1952 The Independence Daily Reporter

(Winners of the kids' golf tournament at Independence Country club under the supervision of Miller Harmon on the left, and Johnie Stapp on the right are: four year old Letty Stapp in the Pee-Wee division... The youngsters were given theater passes to attend the Booth Theater, as prizes and also golf balls. The older set received golf merchandise at the club.)

Behind our house is where I learned to ride a two wheeled bicycle down the hill. Dad pushed me off and away I went. Like my daughter in the 1970's I crashed, busted my knees and jumped back on the blue bicycle. It didn't take long to learn to ride and enjoy the freedom that came with it. While others walked the golf course, I could sometimes ride across the fairways away from the lake area.

In the spring of 1954 my father took a position as golf professional in Miami, Oklahoma. We moved leaving behind precious memories of my times playing in sand piles behind our home; learning not to eat the beans from the Catalpa trees; discovering that snakes really do eat golf balls; loving our country club stray dogs and cats; and learning not to ever sit on a pop bottle, even if the big boys can sit on one, because the red juice at the bottom of the empty bottle might just have a bumble bee down there and bumble bees sting right through clothing and hurt a little girl's pride. 

The Golf Gypsy: Letter to Dad

Dear Dad,

I wish you could be here to see the changes in golf in the last thirty years.  You'd be so impressed by the young women who can hit the ball 275+ off the tee, and they might be only fifteen years old!  Even my driver distance improved with the new technology in golf clubs and golf balls. When I was fifty-five I could still hit the ball farther than I did at eighteen.  I've kept my old persimmon MacGregor woods as a reminder of the beauty and difficulty of times past, but the heavy leather bags that tore at my shoulders have long since been given away.

This summer while playing in the WOGA Stroke Play Amateur at Dornick Hills, one of your old favorites,  I saw an old woman playing golf.  She swung the club exactly like you might have taught her, a smooth rhythmical swing that looks effortless, but judging from the distance I watched the ball fly, she hit the ball at least 10-30 yards less than a younger women.  This old woman played the cliff hole like an aging tree, moving stiffly in the wind. I felt the cracks of her spine that reflected the rugged cliff facing her.

Her 8 iron could no longer carry the cliff, her eyes seemed to have tears in them, but her resolve moved her stubbornly to the next shot and the next until her ball found its way to the top and onto the green.  Only then did I realize that I was that old woman, not someone I could point to and say, "When I'm that old I'll ...."

I sobbed silently that day, but kept my head steady and putted with skill and focus to make up for the lost yardage.

Dad, you've been on my mind constantly this summer because I remember with love and sorrow how difficult it was for me to watch you age.  Now I am understanding your pain daily when I get out of bed or play golf.  I watched how your burned and scared arms from that childhood fire stiffened your wrists causing you to cringe with every golf shot or hammer stroke. I noticed when your hips refused to rotate how the pain shot down your legs causing you to explain the "hitch in the get along", but you never stopped playing golf, Dad.  Sometimes weeks passed between rounds of golf.  You slowed down, took longer naps. Most importantly, you persevered and taught your two daughters by example.  Thank you, Dad

The Golf Gypsy, Letty