When COVID Takes a Golf Friend
Golf Digest Middle East|February 2021
I GOT A CALL the other night from my old buddy Moon Man who wanted to let me know that the hero of our glory days had died of COVID.
JERRY TARDE
When COVID Takes a Golf Friend

Close readers of this column might remember him from a 2004 ranking of the Top 5 Putters I’ve Ever Seen: (1) Tiger Woods, (2) Jack Nicklaus, (3) Bobby Locke, (4) Billy Casper, (5) Ed (the Bear) Billus, an opponent of mine on Philadelphia munys who did not miss a single putt that mattered, 1973-’88. Actually, upon reflection, I think he was a little better than Locke and Casper.

The Bear is what we called him at Juniata Golf Course in Northeast Philly, where everybody had a nickname, and the regular wager was $2 per nine holes. I’d stand on the first tee with about 30 other coffee-drinkers and take a partner, like StiffArms or Wawa, and we would “box” the field—playing 15 matches against all the other pairs. These were the free-wheeling days of my youth, long before house payments and college tuitions. The player you wanted as a partner was the Bear because he never lost. He would take somebody like Cosmo the Fat Man who didn’t even play golf and win big money matches with a lot of side action against the bestball of Plucker, Long Hair and Chollie Binoculars. I was known as Pro Shop because that’s where I worked.

This story is from the February 2021 edition of Golf Digest Middle East.

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This story is from the February 2021 edition of Golf Digest Middle East.

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