HOLLYWOOD PAST AND PRESENT

ad’s principal playground during his years in Los Angeles was Lakeside Golf Club, an entertainment-industry enclave then and now: from Oliver Hardy, W.C. Fields, Johnny Weissmuller and Gene Autry in the past to Jack Nicholson, Sylvester Stallone, Justin Timberlake, Adam Levine, George Lopez and Bruce Willis today.

The club was conveniently located around the corner from Universal Studios, allowing Dad to play early in the morning and, during summer months, late in the afternoon, often with Bob Hope.

Many days, Dad played a morning round and went to the racetrack in the afternoon. When asked by his playing partners if he wanted to go to the track with them, he invariably would answer, “I have a previous engagement, but I’ll see you there.” He then would arrive at the track accompanied by the caddies who had worked his foursome that morning. Inevitably, Dad would overpay each of them by $20 as seed money for their wagers.

“People ask me how much golf I’ve played and how I learned my golf,” Dad said. “I learned it playing with these caddies, mostly, and watching pros play.” Dad often went to the caddies’ rooming house and rousted a few of them to play a $1 nassau. Norman Blackburn, in his book

wrote that “Bing would rather win a buck from a caddie than a thousand from Dan Topping [the co-owner of the New York Yankees], which he did many times.”