My Beginnings

For me, Mum was a wonderful golfing companion because she organized everything, with a smile; she knew everyone in golf and was admired and respected by all with her kindness, her class of great lady and great champion. She followed all the games with passion and hardly commented on my game, something she left to my father the great technician of golf and tennis (he studied with passion the books of Ben Hogan and Horton Smith for the putting).

I can't say the exact age of my debut because I think as soon as I had the strength to run a club the people around me at Chantaco must have tried to get me to play. My first concrete memories of golf are lessons with Raymond Garaïalde around the age of 8. He congratulated me when I arrived at the first bunker of 1 in Chantaco, because, at that time, he was giving his lessons on a tee between 1 and 9, under an acacia tree which was struck down and replaced by the current pine trees.

 

It was at a time when the Frayssineau brothers, Jacques Mourgue d'Algue, France Boulard came to Chantaco. We would make memorable 4 balls and then end the afternoons with games of croquet in the children's corner with bursts of laughter and warm and friendly discussions.

        

I was also lucky to have my two older brothers, Bernard and François, both great golfers although very busy with their studies. They made me play from time to time with their friends such as Gaétan Mourgue d´Algue, Michel and Jean Garaïalde and many others who passed in Chantaco. Also, at that time, I played with Chantaco caddies which became big names in French golf such as Bernard Pascassio, Raymond Telleria, Dominique and Jean-Michel Larretche, Jean Delgado. I was very lucky to be around their age because training with them, playing (professional) back boxes, playing hard games and that was surely a big help for me. Apart from teaching me a lot about golf, they have become very close friends.

        

Step by step, almost without realizing it, I lowered my handicap, always in the summer because I did not touch a golf club in Paris until I was 16. In children's competitions I despaired Mom because, as a good President and especially not wanting to give me an advantage, she gave me a handicap corresponding to the lowest score made by me before and, several times, stimulated by my temperament as a winner, I came with a few more points!

        

One of my earliest memories of golfing childhood was, around the age of 8, a youth greensome (bringing together a child under 16 and a person over 15). I was playing with Papa who was supposed to have a 6 handicap and when we got to 18 we were told that in order to win he had to enter an approach of about 40 or 50 yards from the right of the green over a bunker and , to my surprise and joy, he did. For a long time I believed that Papa played better than anyone and also I knew that nothing was impossible. It was a notion that my father communicated to me often throughout my life and my sporting career in particular.

        

 

Without telling me, when he left for the 1967 United States Open, he made me understand and above all believe that it was not impossible to win it!

        

Another of my concrete memories of my golfing childhood was the first Alliance de Saint Jean-de-Luz that I played with Jean Garaïalde. "Jeannot" as we all called him at the time, surely pushed by his father who was my teacher, would have the kindness to make me play this formula so funny and enriching, that I played again with him several years, of a foursome followed by a four ball with a pro. I regret this formula compared to the Pro-Am where you can play 18 holes, win the competition and not have scored a single point! That year in particular, the weather was classic in the Basque Country thanks to which we are always surrounded by green, it had rained a lot. I was playing with big boots and thanks to Jeannot’s patience we won the Alliance. He presented me with the putter that I have played my whole life with and therefore won all my championships except one where the greens were very slow and for which I had used a heavier putter. I think this is a very rare occurrence in the world of high performance golf where players change putters according to their form or desire.

        

Also the Prix de la Maison des Basques that I played with Béatrice Boulard and where we won her a Balenciaga dress and I a golf bag bigger than me! My handicap went from 24 to 20 that year. Kiki, of whom I speak in the next paragraph, still remembers, because of course he made my caddy, with a second shot at five from the point overlooking the valley, with a wood five, which brought me full green but also of 'a dramatic 4 putts at the 17th where he almost tore the few hair that he happily hid under his beret!

        

Concretely in these three competitions, but also in general the presence of Kiki Larretche helped me more than anyone, myself included, could achieve it because, after having, at the beginning, made my caddy at the request of Dad when I was playing small competitions as a child, then he made me play very young in games on Sunday morning with all the good players in the region. We would go to mass at 8 am and go straight to golf. He himself had a handicap of 3 and taught me all the tricks of the game on the field like all the ways to approach, to get out of the woods, to see the slopes, in other words the sense of the game while Raymond Garaïalde me. learned the technique on the spot with the always watchful eye of Papa who often put his two cents from behind. Then, when I was training with Jean-Claude Harismendy, who inherited from me as a student, when Raymond disappeared, I knew that Dad couldn't resist intervening from time to time. He would come to see a drive or an iron if the weather was good and I would hear about it for days or even weeks !! He still believed, with his love of a father, that I could play the same way at 50 as at 20, and was almost angry with me because I couldn't or, according to him, didn't want to. not do it! Ah! My dear father crocodile! Moreover, the phone calls to Jean-Claude, this kind and efficient teacher, also concerned my children from time to time. After having so desired a champion child, it was of course a dream for him to imagine a champion grandchild or a champion great grandchildren! But, does blood make the champion? This is a question I will try to add my two cents in later in this book without of course claiming to answer it. 

 

But let's go back to my beginnings; Raymond Garaïalde always knew how to simplify his advice more than Papa and he would have the intelligence to let him do it. To come back to Kiki Larretche, this great rugby champion, let's not forget, he continued to follow my golf career with his half paternal, half friendly help and the crowning of this so close association was the first World Championship where he "went up" to Paris with his wife Victorine to make me the caddy and help me with his composure, his golfing advice, his experience as a champion and his friendship to participate in this victory for France which has not always been possible. repeated. He used the lining of a brand new Basque beret, bought for the occasion, turning it over and overIt was for a long time a joy to see his big smile when he arrived at the Chantaco golf course. Besides, I think a lot of golfers think the same thing as me because, after his career as a rugby player, then as a mechanic, he came as caddy-master at Chantaco helping by his knowledge in the machines that worked on the golf course. He was also always there to help my dad fit a new golf club. I'm sure my dad would agree that without him he wouldn't have been able to develop this polyurethane club that was so remarkable. Personally I have tried it in all its phases but also Olazabal, Faldo, Sandrine Mendiburu, and how many other professionals and amateurs who have tried it under the watchful eye of Kiki who then went to report it to my father so that 'he can make any changes he sees fit. Finally, this club came out after so many years of work and it could have had the same success as the other inventions of my father without the arrival of metallic antlers: I am thinking in particular of the Lacoste Shirt or the first metallic racquet. invented: the Wilson T2000, T3000, T4000 with which Jimmy Connors won more than 100 tournaments. Moreover, several months after giving in to the pressure to sign another contract, Jimmy Connors was still phoning my father in the middle of the night to try to convince him to send him T2000 rackets, even without a contract, because he didn't. couldn't play as well with other brands! In my opinion, this polyurethane driver went straighter and further than other clubs of the time. I wish I was old enough to prove it!