Here’s something I bet most people don’t know; an astronaut once hit a golf ball on the moon. That’s right, in the midst of one of the most important achievements in the history of the human race, one guy thought it was a perfect moment to work on his short game. This will surprise most people but growing up I was a huge Space Geek. I dreamed of being an astronaut because the idea of exploring the unknown and traveling to space fascinated me. But this story isn’t about my passion for space, rather the most famous golf shot in history and the opportunity for me to live vicariously through my 9 year old.
Let’s begin with the “golfer”, Commander Alan B. Shepard. Not only was he the first (and only) person to hit a golf ball on the moon, but he was the first American is space. In May 1961, Shepard completed a 15 minute sub-orbital flight and showed the world that America was officially in the race to space. You see, Commander Shepard was one of my boyhood heroes. Not only was he a naval academy graduate, a test pilot, and an astronaut (think of Top Gun on steroids), but he grew up 20 miles from me in a small town in southern New Hampshire. There wasn’t anyone more famous in our small little corner of the country, and our local newspaper reported on Shepard so extensively we knew everything about him; family, friends, pets, etc. After his first space flight, and many times thereafter, Shepard work come back to his hometown for parades and award presentations. I often tried to get my parents to take me so I might catch of glimpse of my hero, but they always said no, which in hindsight was probably a very good decision in that Derry, NH was a very small town and he was very popular.
As for the “Moon Shot”, through the years there have been a number of stories about the event –how did it happen, did Shepard smuggle a golf club on board, did the balls travel hundreds of yards, never came down? While I wasn’t there to see first hand, after reading his book….and being a Shepard super-fan, I feel like I have the real story. The idea of hitting a ball on the moon actually came from a discussion Shepard had with Bob Hope when Hope visited mission control in 1970. Both Shepard and Hope were big golfers (Hope used to walk around with a driver in his hand) and the question was raised as to how far a golf ball would travel without the gravitational pull of the earth. Shepard had been named the Commander of Apollo 14, which was supposed to travel to the moon in 1970, but after the Apollo 13 fiasco (Houston, we’ve got a problem), the flight was delayed to early, 1971. He brought up the idea of hitting a golf ball on the moon to the powers to be and they initially said no as they were concerned it would trivialize all of the scientific work that the crew was conducting while on the moon. But Shepard kept pressing the idea and eventually got the OK.
Now there were two major problems to overcome; 1) there was no place to store a golf club in the space capsule, and 2) how would he be able to swing the club given that he was in this big, bulky space suit which restricted his movement and he was wearing bulky gloves. To address the golf club problem, he took the head of a Wilson 6 iron and had it adapted so it could attach to the end of a collapsible pole used to collect moon rocks. As for how to swing the club, the only way was to use just one hand. So on February 6, 1971, Alan Shepard teed up two golf balls and gave them a whack. Using modern technology to review the film, it is now estimated that the first shot went 24 yards and the second shot, 40. Hardly the longest drives ever that some people were expecting, but never the less quite an amazing feat considering all of the challenges.
So what happened to the balls and club? Considering all of the moon dust and craters, they never went looking for the balls, but as for the club, this is where the story gets personal. So I never got to see or meet Alan Shepard. Fast forward to 1994. He was in the midst of promoting his book Moon Shot, and one of the stops on his book tour was the United States Golf Association (USGA) headquarters in NJ. This happened to be the 20th anniversary of when he donated the custom golf club to the USGA museum (much to the chagrin of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum who had always wanted the club). As it so happened, the father of one of my son’s classmates was the executive director of the USGA and he invited his daughter’s class to attend the event. So I come home from work one night to my 3rd grader who nonchalantly shares that he and his class were going to see Alan Shepard. I was so excited that he was going to see my childhood hero that I went out and bought a copy of Shepard’s book, so my son could have him autograph it.
As you can imagine, my third grader didn’t see the significance of what Shepard did as I had ( by the mid 90s, space travel was no longer a big deal and my son was only 9 or 10), so one night I took him outside and pointed to the moon and said – “see the moon, the guy you are going to see walked on the moon” trying to impress upon him the magnitude of what Alan Shepard had accomplished. I am not sure it made much difference, and here’s where I leave my dream in the hands of my third grader…..and thankfully his teach.
On the day of the event, I was nervous my son would get nervous when it was time to ask for the autograph and decided it was a good day to drive him to school myself. When I was dropping him off, I was able to talk to his teacher to let her in on his mission. I explained to her that Alan Shepard was from a couple towns over from me growing up and was hoping he could sign a copy of his book for me. Being the awesome person that she was, she said she’d do her best to make it happen.
Now the next part of the story is from the teachers perspective (which I find more believable than my 9 year old’s). Once Shepard was done speaking, he was quickly ushered to do some interviews which led to my son thinking he missed his shot. Luckily, the teacher was able to find the right person to make it happen. After getting the green light, she had to hunt down my son who was off goofing around, and go to a random room where it was just her, my son, and an astronaut. I had told my son to mention where he was from as I’m sure it would be a conversation starter, but for the one time in his life, he was shy. But regardless, 50 years after that unbelievable golf shot, an personalize autographed copy of his book sits in our bookshelf today.
The concept of astronauts and space travel today is nothing like it was in the 1960’s. Now private citizens (very wealthy private citizens) are paying $55 million to travel into space, trips to the International Space Station seem to occur on a regular basis and spacecrafts are landing on Mars. For many, space travel may be commonplace, but for me, I still look up at the moon and think of Neil Armstrong, Alan Shepard, and the other 10 men who walked on the moon, and that my son got to meet one of my heroes. Shepard retired as a rear admiral from NASA and the Navy in 1974 and passed away in 1998. God speed Alan Shepard
