To golfers of a certain age, the game’s history is as much a part of its appeal as the bright green of a fairway or the sight of a well-driven ball soaring into a blue sky. There are the mist-shrouded tales of ancient Scots armed with flimsy wooden clubs sending leather balls stuffed with feathers over wind-swept ocean cliffs. There is a whiff of peat smoke, the trilling of a distant bagpipe, the tang of a post-game whiskey.
For Gerry McGuire, a passionate golfer for half a century, the game’s traditions take on a personal cast, inhabiting three rooms of his home at The Cliffs at Walnut Cove: some 1,500 golf clubs and many shelves of memorabilia he’s collected since first stepping up to a tee.
“I remember hitting stones into the river with sticks when I was a boy in Massachusetts,” says McGuire. At that time, golf was the pursuit of the more economically fortunate, but it came into personal reach after McGuire went to work for UPS in 1959. During the next 35 years, he rose to Vice President of Operations and helped establish the company’s presence in Europe — and his enthusiasm for golf grew right along with his career.
Playing on courses all over Europe with a number of differently manufactured clubs, McGuire became fascinated by the relationship between the club set used and the game played — how a kind of courtship developed between a player and a new set of clubs, each learning the other’s strengths and weaknesses. “It’s not about the Indians, but the arrows,” he says, holding up a once-common driver with a hickory shaft and a head made of persimmon wood, part of a set he acquired in his travels. The variable play of a wooden club — once the standard before the advent of steel and graphite — has to be learned by its owner. “I think wood shafts and heads will come back,” says McGuire, “because the steel and graphite clubs are making the game too standardized. I think the game’s lost that connection between the player and the clubs he or she uses.”
He’s had nearly all of his clubs on the course at one time or another, each set carrying its own story, like the ones he used at Harbourtown on Hilton Head in a foursome with Ernie Els. “I shot a 72, and double-bogeyed the last hole,” McGuire reveals. “Ernie was pretty impressed.”
Nearby, neatly arranged in display racks or poking out of traditional leather golf bags, are an original Bobby Jones putter, the indentations on the head all hand-punched, and a Wilson 8802, a much-revered putter worth, McGuire says, around $3,000 on the open market. Complementing the collection are trophies and photographs from five decades of play with a host of famous names, including a framed letter from one of his favorite professionals, Payne Stewart, who died in a 1999 plane crash.
Behind a low balustrade is a golf simulator; its screen can carry a player to any number of 60 classic courses, from Old St. Andrew’s to Pebble Beach. “Sometimes I invite the guys over for a game on a course of their choice, with me as their caddy,” says McGuire. “We’ll get inspired to donate equipment to kids in the start-up golf programs.” He participates, too, in actual benefit tournaments both here and abroad, and has traveled to Shannon, Ireland, for 26 consecutive years to play in that country’s “Wings” charity tournament.
“I think it’s great if you can use what you’re passionate about to help others.”
McGuire’s home course is Walnut Cove, not far from the house he and his wife Elaine built three years ago, large enough to shelter not only his club collection but also samples of another passion: wine. After living in Germany for nine years during his time with UPS, McGuire developed a particular love of that country’s Rieslings, which he now imports. Cases of it dwell in the wine cellar he constructed after obtaining his import license. “I’m out to convert Chardonnay drinkers to Riesling,” he declares. Other interests include the Asheville Humane Society (he and Elaine are active supporters) and fishing.
But first in line, as it has always been, is golf.
“My family was poor and I grew up with the ‘work hard, play hard’ ethic,” he says. “I think that’s why I love golf so much. It’s expensive, time-consuming and selfish, in the sense that it takes you away for hours from your family. So you really have to love the game to play well, and work hard at it.
“Besides, I’m still in search of the perfect club.”