Golf Clubs & Guitars (Part 1)

The following is the first installment of a multi-part story from my "formative" years. (I'm thinking two parts, but we'll see where it goes.) Enjoy.

I started playing guitar about the same time I took up golf … at age 16. Not coincidentally, this was also the age when I received--as gifts--both my first guitar (from Mom and Dad as a birthday gift) and my first set of clubs (from my Uncle Bob, an avid high-handicapper who visited twice a year from Albuquerque and wanted me to play with him when he was in town).

Today, many, many, MANY years later, I can proudly proclaim that I’m still mediocre at both the guitar and golf, with occasional flashes of "OK to good.” More often, my brain and body collude against me, causing awful sounds (on the guitar, and sometimes on the golf course), shots (golf only) and outcomes (both guitar and golf).

Why do I tell you this? With complete transparency, I’ll admit it’s a setup; a way to introduce a story from my early guitar-playing days when, for a brief period of time, I took lessons (unlike golf, where my only lessons were of the “life” version and conducted right there on the course, not a practice green or driving range).

Before I delve into the seamy side of the guitar lessons game (at least my version of it), allow me to digress into why I should have taken golf lessons instead of guitar lessons.

While golf and guitar may appear to occupy opposites ends of the spectrum by way of skill set, manual dexterity, brain function and artistry, I’d submit they are similar based on one factor: both are extremely difficult to learn, especially if you didn’t begin—and take lessons--as a child.

Now, one would think that as someone who’s relatively athletic (playing multiple sports, some through high school and beyond), and also relatively musical (band through high school on two instruments, choir through college), it would be a snap for me to become proficient if not “good” at both these avocations (a heavy word to use for someone who doesn’t like to practice; maybe “hobby” is better).

Make no mistake, I’ve always wanted (and continue to want) to be good at these two things, I really do. I just no longer possess that childlike sense of commitment I had back when I spent hundreds and thousands of hours (long before Malcolm Gladwell’s “10,000 hour” theory) teaching myself to throw, field and catch a baseball, dribble and shoot a basketball, operate a pogo stick for upwards of 30 minutes at a time, etc.

By the time I entered the disparate yet parallel worlds of golf and “guitarism” (I think I just coined that term), I had developed—typical of most 16-year-olds--other interests in life.

At any rate, picking up my new Fender acoustic for the first time (that’s a guitar, not a golf club in case you just landed on this planet), I used my already serviceable music theory skills and “good ear” to figure out chords and play some of my favorite songs. Nothing special, but I was making progress (that is, if you define “progress” as playing “Michael Row The Boat Ashore,” “Leavin’ On A Jet Plane” and “Blowin’ In The Wind” on repeat).

After a few months, I told my mom I wanted to take guitar lessons. She said, as she always did with neither excitement nor hesitation, “OK.” With that raving endorsement, I set off to find a guitar teacher, which in 1981 consisted of calling (or stopping into) the local music store and asking, “Do you give guitar lessons?” At which point, a semi-lucid “dude” behind the counter would stare blankly through you, finally grunting, “Well … yeah,” as though the 75 guitars for sale hanging around the perimeter of the place didn’t seal that deal.

“Uh, great,” I said in my most confident, 16-year-old crackly voice. (Full disclosure, my speaking voice took four-plus years to change, so from ages 13 to 17, we never really knew if my words would sound more like a clarinet or a trombone. Interestingly, it never cracked when I sang … go figure.)

“So, when you wanna start?” asked the dude.

“Um, well, I guess soon. How much, uh, you know, are they?”

“Seven dollars a half hour.”

After mulling the price, realizing I could swing it on my part-time Pizza Hut salary, and also wondering if this guy was going to be my teacher (I wasn’t sure how I felt about that), I decided to jump in with both feet.

“OK,” I said, “I can start next week if you have an opening.”

Without consulting a calendar or even hesitating, the dude said, “Next Wednesday, 4:00 o’clock.”

“Uh, OK,” I said, already experiencing buyer’s remorse, even though I had yet to drop a dime on this endeavor. “I’ll be here. Are … um, you gonna, you know, be my teacher?”

He snorted as he threw back his shoulder-length Allman Brothers hair. “I’m a drummer,” he said as if I should have known it already. “Dave’s your teacher.” He cocked his head to the right as though Dave was standing next to him. (He wasn’t.)

As I left the store, I wasn’t sure what I had gotten myself into, but with my new mentor, Dave, I was sure that, before long, I’d be shredding the neck of that new Fender like all the guitar heroes that came before me.

But alas, sometimes, when God gives you lemons, no matter how hard you try to make lemonade, all you end up with is a bunch of rotting, crushed fruit. And so began my guitar lesson experience.

(To be continued ...)

(C) 2025 David R. Haznaw