I met many unforgettable characters at the driving range. I even got along with a few of them. I remember the first time I met Lenny, who I first thought was a laid back hippie doofus but later found was a new age renaissance man.

Lenny was, in no uncertain terms, a generalist. He knew a little bit about everything and a lot about most things. I never mentioned a subject he didn’t like. His main expertise was in the computer science area, but he had a myriad of interests which spanned the spectrum from music to politics to sports psychology.

The first time I noticed him was on one of those muggy July days in the hottest part of the afternoon. He and I were the only ones stupid enough to be hitting balls at that time of day. He was wearing a red hippie headband in a vain attempt to keep the sweat out of his eyes. He was hitting old generic clubs so I knew right away that he was somewhat eccentric, since I saw him drive up in a new Lincoln Continental. He had a quirky swing where he ended up on his left heel on the follow through.

I struck up a conversation with him, and to my amazement, he could actually articulate a notion with machine gun rapidity. Certainly, he was unlike most of the customers at the driving range. He actually had a brain with working neurons.

I met Lenny before I actually worked at the driving range. During the time I was employed at this sacred establishment, I always let my buddies hit for free. Lenny became one of my buddies. Of course, that buddy list was a short one, a count that could be terminated on one hand using unary arithmetic.

Lenny was somewhat unique in the fact that he was laid back and care free when he wasn’t involved in sports. But, get him on a playing field and he became a tiger. If he couldn’t beat his opponent physically, he reverted to psychological warfare. He was a master of the ego deflating quip and the put down.

Lenny didn’t need to resort to any psychological tactics when he played me for money. He could flat out beat me by as many strokes as he wanted every time we went out. However, he couldn’t resist using his psychological ploys even when they weren’t needed.

His favorite tactic was to give me a friendly tip about my swing immediately after I hit my best shot of the day. That was his favorite game. It was psychologically damaging to hit your best shot and then have him tell you that you pronated your left wrist at impact since the ball went straight but ended up on the left side of the fairway.

If I hit a bad shot, he usually never said much. If he did articulate a thought, he would utter a generic ego booster like “Don’t worry about it. You’ll get ‘em next time.” But, let me have an excellent shot and here came the barbs and tips. It was an excellent ploy, really. After a while, I could judge how well I was playing by counting the number of times he gave me a tip. If I got a lot of tips during the round, I knew that I was playing well.

I remember the best example of this psychological warfare. We had driven to Billyburg to play on Curtis Strange’s home course. He got me on the first tee. The first hole had a gigantic gully which split the fairway about one hundred yards out, so, I put a little extra into the shot. I hit it well, about two forty, although it went into the left rough. I smiled within myself, knowing that I had hit a good shot. But, I hadn’t even recoiled from the shot before Lenny started in on me. He rambled on for at least two minutes about how I hadn’t finished my backswing and how I had swung too fast. I let him know post haste that I was tired of his psychological shenanigans.

He gave me a little grin, set up to his ball, and hit a perfect drive down the middle of the fairway, about two forty out.

He beat me by twelve strokes that day. I only got that one tip. That was enough. He had done me in on the first shot on the first hole.