Member Clubs famous boxer , Rocky Marciano , the late , great heavyweight champion of the world .
When she was a child , his mother ’ s family lived only two doors down from the Marciano clan . Cassidy likes to brag that , according to family lore , when his mom was growing up , she regularly beat up young Rocky a couple of times a year .
“ When I was a kid , people would always say , ‘ Don ’ t mess with Mrs . Cassidy ,’” he said . “ I never knew him ( Marciano ), but my father saw him fight as an amateur one time when he got beat real bad . But the next day , Rocky was out doing his road work and my dad said , ‘ that boy is going to make it .’”
Cassidy ’ s boyhood mostly was centered at Brockton GC , a private club that had several distinguished members . One was Herbert Warren Wind , considered the pre-eminent golf writer of his and most other eras . It was Wind , writing in the New Yorker magazine , who once described holes 11 , 12 and 13 at Augusta National as “ Amen Corner .”
Other Brockton GC members included Richard Tarlow , who owned the FootJoy shoe company , and billionaire philanthropist Paul Fireman , who ran Reebok for 26 years before selling the company to Adidas in 2006 . Cassidy was mostly oblivious to those fancy resumes . He was totally infatuated with the game .
“ Monday was caddie day at the course , and I ’ d play all day ,” he recalled . “ Then I started sneaking on the course and my dad said to the general manager , how about we get him a junior membership ? It was $ 75 a year . I would play 18 holes in the morning , 18 in the afternoon and nine at night , 45 holes a day in the summer .”
At age 17 , Cassidy won the Brockton city amateur title , still the youngest winner of the event . He played on his high school golf team and competed in junior events at the local and state level . He was recruited to play golf at the University of Oklahoma but described his one year in Norman as “ total culture shock ,” including having to learn to hit low , wind-cheating shots he rarely faced back home in Massachusetts .
Unhappy as a Sooner , he returned to Brockton and worked for the state of Massachusetts on a surveying crew until he came home one day and his father announced , “ Uncle Sam wants to see you .” Cassidy didn ’ t get it at first , but that was a draft notice from the U . S . Army , and he decided to sign up for three years . He spent 1968 and ’ 69 in Vietnam deployed with the First Infantry .
Once discharged , he came back home and enrolled at the Stockbridge School of Agriculture at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst , where he studied turf management . One summer , he had an internship at Columbia Country Club in Chevy Chase , Md ., and met the late Bill Strausbaugh , the legendary head professional there for 31 years until his death in 1999 .
After he graduated from Stockbridge , Strausbaugh helped Cassidy get his first teaching job , as an assistant pro at Carper ’ s Valley , a now-closed public course in Winchester . Cassidy said he worked 80 hours
He doesn ’ t try to change your grip , your swing , your stance , unless it ’ s really horrible . He doesn ’ t try to make you over , as some people do . And the main thing is that he ’ s just low key . No tension around him . And he is very well-liked at the club .
— Andrew Stifler
a week and earned $ 80 a week back then . He also started drinking heavily , and in 1975 entered a 12-step recovery program that eventually got him sober and back into teaching golf again .
It also led to a different sort of second career . For 29 years , until he was hired at Millwood in 2015 , Cassidy also ran a halfway house in Winchester for recovering alcohol and drug addicts , a job for which his own drinking problems obviously had prepared him to help so many others . He occasionally gave lessons , and for a while , coached the golf team at Winchester ’ s James Wood High School .
In the mid-70s , not long after his recovery , Cassidy became an assistant at the Winchester Country Club , then went back to Carper ’ s Valley as the head pro with a rather unique marketing tool . That would be the 15-foot ladder he put up against a tree with a sign on top that read “ if you hit your ball here , you need a lesson from Eddie in the pro shop .”
Cassidy never did become an official PGA of America teaching professional , which eventually led to Carper ’ s Valley letting him go . But he also likes to point out that Butch Harmon , Tiger Woods ’ instructor for many years , never got his PGA certification card either .
“ I just always had an eye for teaching ,” he said . “ I wasn ’ t really book smart , but I learned from watching . When I was a kid , I caddied for a guy named Smiley Connell , a Massachusetts state amateur champion . I caddied for him every day and just watched every swing he made . I learned so much .”
The first lesson Cassidy ever had as a 13-year-old was with a Scottish teacher named Bill Shields , who put down a ball near a tree and told him to try to hit it over the top . Impossible , Cassidy told him . Shields then proceeded to hit it over the tree .
“ Finally , I learned how to do it ,” Cassidy said . “ On the second lesson , he put a ball down in the fairway and handed me a driver . He wanted me to hit it off the deck . I said , ‘ I can ’ t do that .’ Then he did it . Pretty soon I could do it , too .”
These days , one of Cassidy ’ s most important lessons to his students focuses on several key body parts .
“ Most beginners have too much tension in their forearms , too much tightness in the shoulders , too strong with the grip ,” he said . “ A golf club is a piece of equipment . It ’ s not a weapon . It ’ s just a nice easy swing and you don ’ t have to choke it to death .”
He also learned an important lesson himself playing one day years ago with Billy Phillips , the head pro at the Winchester Country Club .
“ One day we were playing and I said to him ‘ see that guy over there . If I had a swing like that , I ’ d quit ,’” Cassidy said . “ He says to me ‘ let me tell you something . If that guy hits one good shot , he ’ s happy all day . Eddie , if you hit one bad shot , it will stay with you all day .’ It ’ s the best lesson I ever got .” Spoken like an olde pro , for sure .
Leonard Shapiro covered golf for the Washington Post for more than 20 years and is a past president of the Golf Writers Association of America .
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