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By Brooks A. Mick, M.D.
Mar. 16, 2006 Several months ago I had a piece here on Ray Williams, "Sergeant 5-Iron," and decided it would be worth amplifying with some additional information. The new version follows: Raymond Williams is 82 years old now and still, when he feels good, shoots legitimate 69-72 stroke scores on the golf course, though he plays from the ladies' tees now as he says he can't drive over 240 yards anymore. And those are no-cheating scores. He came by his golfing skills quite naturally. His father's friend was a well-known golfer and became his first golf teacher. That friend was the legendary Bobby Jones, and Mr. Williams began golfing instruction with Jones at age 5. The number 5 was to play a big role in Ray Williams's life. We'll hit that number afew more times in this tale. Mr. William's father was Guinn "Big Boy" Williams, a minor Hollywood actor back in the days when silent films were switching over to "talkies." He starred in several cowboy films, and became a decent character actor later, playing smaller parts in many films. Rather than the hero role of his early films, he often played the villain as his movie career wound down. He was 6'2" tall, athletic, strong, and looked good on the big screen. Through his movie career, "Big Boy" became friends with Will Rogers, the famous comedian. It was Rogers who, upon meeting him, gazed up at the large, muscular Williams and said, "My, you are a big boy." Williams and Rogers played on a Hollywood polo team, both being good riders. And that became his nickname. Bobby Jones, the most famous golfer in the world at th etime, frequently visited Hollywood. He became friends with Will Rogers, and through Rogers was friends with "Big Boy" Williams. And thus "Big Boy's" son, Ray, got some free golfing lessons from Jones. "Big Boy" Williams had a bad temper. He once had a run-in in a parking lot with Orson Welles, Hollywood's "boy wonder" of the day, and he whipped out a knife and cut off Welles' necktie. Ray Williams inherited both his father's athletic abilities and his bad temper. We'll cover that later. Ray was one of the best amateur teenage golfers in the country when he was 17 years old, at which time he enlisted in the Marines for World War 2, where the number five played a role also. He saw duty on five of the most battle-torn islands in the South Pacific: Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, the Sullivans, Marshall Island, and Okinawa. He made the rank of sergeant, as being a 17-yr-old kid was no handicap to promotion when non-commissioned officers were needed because of combat losses. The rank of sergeant is also known as E-5 in military terminology, being the 5th enlisted rank. While serving in the South Pacific, the number five played a part here, too, as he had chosen to take his 5-iron with him to war, it being a middle iron and suitable for keeping one's swing grooved. He would unpack it and take practice swings whenever there were lulls in combat, and he became known to the other Marines as "Sergeant Five-Iron." He survived all the battles and returned to the States, and eventually was assigned to the Pentagon. His bad temper came to the fore here, for he got into a serious disagreement with a general and punched him in the nose. This resulted in his being cashiered out of service and losing his military pension. All throughout, however, he was swinging his 5-iron and playing golf when he could, and his golf swing remained grooved, he survived a lung cancer operation, and he plays to this day. I suspect he is the finest 82-yr-old golfer in the world. He never turned pro, and he never competed as an amateur, but there is little doubt he could have made a name for himself. His old teacher, Bobby Jones, would have been proud. For more about "Big Boy" Williams' movie career, see: http://www.surfnetinc.com/chuck/bigboy.htm http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=76454&mod=bio ------------ About the author Brooks A. Mick: Physician, still practicing medicine but retired from the US Army. Write just for the fun of it, but working on novel in the vein of Tom Clancy's politico-military genre. Email: brooks15@cox.net Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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