HISTORY
Great-Grandpa A.V. Benedict (1889 - 196?)
As far as I can tell, my family's love of golf begins with my great-grandfather, Dr. Arthur V. Benedict. Born on September 13, 1889, he was an osteopathic physician in his career, but also an accomplished and respected golfer. 
There are actually a good many newspaper articles and country club yearbooks that detail what he was doing at the time. He actually played baseball and football in high school, but didn't take up golf until he was past 40 years old.
He was the golf champion of the Ohio Osteopathic Association of Physicians for several years in a row. The image to the left is of him (on the right) and the article talks about him winning it for the third time. The article is undated, but it looks to be from the early 1940s. The "Personality Parade" article to the right shows an older version, and is clearly from 1957, as it talks about his 21 year-old daughter (my grandmother), Rosella.
There are also several articles detailing a match contested for the Ohio Seniors Portside Championship. This was termed "a long awaited grudge match" between my great-grandfather and another left-handed golfer named A.V. Leak. Not only did they share part of the same name, but were born on the exact same day. The match took place over two days, one round at Leak's home course, Wyandott, and the other at Benedict's home course, Scioto.
The picture on the left shows Leak handing Benedict the trophy. Why a match between two 62 year-old left-handers got so much attention, we're not sure. But Benedict won, witht he match play score ending 8 and 6, so it was a decisive victory. One interesting note is that one of the articles leading up to this match has several short golf notes. In the same article that talks about how the match came about, it mentions my grandfather, Dick Barr (Benedict's son-in-law) as one of the finest golfers at the Scioto Country Club. More on him below.
 
In addition to his championships at various levels in the sport, Benedict also had as many as seven hole-in-ones. Two article clippings at the right talk about them, and the one with the date, detailing his fourth hole-in-one, shows he was 75 when that happened. We aren't sure exactly when he died, but it was around the end of the 1960's, when he was nearly 80 years old.
Grandma Rosella Barr (1926 - 1993)
Rosella was born April ???, 1926.  Like her father, she played quite a bit of golf, though it must have only been in her younger years, as I never saw or heard about her playing when I was growing up. To the right, you see Rosella and A.V. in the 1956 Scioto Country Club yearbook, where they had won the father-daughter championship.
Rosella is pictured above, on the left, with another woman, perhaps a teammate. They look like they are about college age.
Grandpa George (Dick) Barr (1923 - 1974)
My dad's dad, Dick Barr (above on the left), was born February 23, 1923. He was an accomplished golfer when he was at the Ohio State University. Grandpa George was a member of Scioto Country Club, and knew Jack Nicklaus. Rumor has it he even gave the youngster a couple golf tips.
The movie on the left shows my grandpa as a very young man (college age, I would presume) simply hitting golf balls. You can see that he has a very nice, smooth swing.
Dad (1950 - )
Growing up in Upper Arlington in the 1950s and '60s, my dad was in the same neighborhood as Jack Nicklaus. In fact, he was the Nicklaus' paperboy for some time. He started playing golf around age 12, but says he was never very good (then again, he never gives himself enough credit)
He says that he never got the chance to be serious about golf until his 40s. In his 30s, he seldom played, and usually struggled to break 100. Then once the kids were gone (I would be one of those kids), he apparently had more disposable income, so he started playing regularly, eventually honing his game to a point where he could shoot in the low 80s on a regular basis.
On July 10, 2005, dad achieved what all golfers everywhere hope to someday; a hole-in-one. On the 134-yard par-3 6th hole at Minerva Lake, he took a 9-iron and dropped it in. It was witnessed by two of his friends. Unfortunately, I wasn't there to see it, but genuinely enjoyed letting him tell me all about it over and over.
In 2006, he wrote to Jack Nicklaus via his web site to basically say hello, and to mention his dad. I think we had all been curious about whether or not the best golfer to ever play the game would immediately remember my grandfather. jack was kind enough to reply with this letter to the left, which you can click on for a full view.
Needless to say, this was a thrill. Dad has the original framed, and it's just cool to know that there was some kind of friendship between our family and the greatest golfer ever.
In the latter part of the first decade of the 21st century, dad has typically been playing very well later into the year. In early 2008 he had some heart trouble and other annoying ailments, but instead of derailing his game, they seemed to make it better. During the summer, he had seven of eight rounds in a row in the 70s, including a 72. His all-time record is 68 on a par-69 course, which he had in 2005.
Me (1974 - )
I received my first set of golf clubs around age 8. It was a kids set, and I believe it contained a driver, 5, 7, and 9-irons, and putter. I liked the clubs, but never did much with them. There are no cute pics of me as a toddler holding a golf club while I poop my pants.....it really took a while before the golfing bug bit me. The first time I ever played 9 holes of golf was with dad and uncle Butch on August 30, 1986. Par was 30, and I shot 71. I didn't write much about it at the time, and I would play a couple more times over the next several years, but never got really into it. I never took lessons, and rarely watched it on TV. At the same age, many of my family members had begun playing regularly.
There was an incident in October, 1985. My sister Kelli and I were staying our cousins while our parents celebrated their wedding anniversary. We walked through some woods, and found ourselves right next to a golf course. A golf ball landed in the fairway, almost adjacent to where were were standing, still shrouded by the trees. After much daring, I finally ran out to the fairway, picked up the ball, and ran back. The others were already gone, and in my absolute, crushing panic of the moment, I dropped the ball somewhere along the way.
The only thing I remember clearly about my golf game as a teenager was the summer afternoon in 1990 or '91 I decided to hit a golf ball from my back yard. I still had the miniature set of clubs, so I'm sure the driver was rather short, but it was all I had ever used. I didn't think I could make the ball go very far; in 9 out of 10 attempts, that would probably have been true. However, I teed the ball up, took a swing, and watched in horror as the ball sailed over our neighbor's house and out of sight. I remember being in a sort of half-cringe for a moment, waiting for the inevitable crash of something breaking.....when that didn't happen, I quickly gathered my things and went back inside. Playing Nintendo was a lot safer.
Starting around 1994, Kelli and I started a tradition of taking dad golfing for Father's Day. He had given me clubs that his father (or maybe mother) had used, and I would play with them for several years. Between 1994 and 2004, I would play between one and four rounds a year, usually on the low side of that range. They were more opportunities to simply spend time with him than anything, as I wasn't working on my game in-between, and really had no grasp of the fundementals at all. I would limp around our par-69 course shooting in the 130s. I thought a good shot was anything where the ball left the ground, and was lucky if I managed to make a bogey.
We always played at dad's "home" course, Minerva Lake, whose web site I now run. In the very early years, my shots would inexplicably travel to places far away from my playing partners. I would often take the extra cart on little journeys and hack away. One one such occasion, I was at the bottom of a hill with a lot of trees all around. I played out and thought I had done okay until dad called out from far away and asked where the Hell I was going, as I had more or less begun playing a different hole.
That didn't stop us from going on our first golf trip in July, 1997. I don't remember the scores, but they were surely pathetic. Butch and my cousin Brendan joined us the first day, and I do remember that on Sunday morning, we played at a course that barely existed. The fairways were practically marshes, and the humidity was so bad, it was dreadful to be outside. I happened to suffer one of my worst allergy attacks of the year, and it was pretty miserable.
But the idea of having a golf weekend together stuck with us. We had our second outing in 2001, and by then, my "okay" rounds were between 110 and 120, and I think my best was a 105.
For all the lack of attention I gave my game during those years, I still managed to retain tips and learn from my playing enough to make small improvements. Still, for the next few years, I would typically shoot above 110.
2005 would be a turning point. I would end up playing nine rounds, by far the most I ever had in one year. That summer, I actually started thinking about the possibility of breaking 100, though I had no idea how far away, skill-wise, I was. The only thing I knew for sure was that 2006 would be the first year I could golf somewhat regularly, and I expected myself to do well. I had no reason to expect as much as I did, but my blind optimism must have helped.
I played 30 rounds in 2006, and none were more important than on July 16, when I broke 100 for the first time with a 98. This was a major event for me, as it signified that I had some abilities. I would go on to shoot in the 90s nine times that year. However, my swing was still in disarray. Dad and I went on our third golf trip late that summer, and while I did break 100 during one of the rounds, a look at the video to the left will make one wonder how I ever managed to get anything done.
With a slow, lumbering yet stiff movement, I stand far too close to the ball. I'm also too upright, don't get aligned correctly, and dip my arms inside as I follow through, causing all the power that was built up in the backswing to disappear forever. When I got home from the trip and watched this video, I was stunned. I had managed to break 100, and was feeling great about my game, but now that I could see what I was actually doing, I started questioning everything I knew.
Of course, other than on-the-course advice from dad, I had very little swing knowledge. When I hit two shots in a row and one turned out good while the other was terrible, I had no idea what I had done differently. It was around this time that I decided I had to finally get some lessons.
In early 2007, I took my first lessons, and they helped immediately. I was able to temper what had been a wicked slice (where the ball sails off to the right), and learned a few things about stance, posture, and grip. It would take until later that year before I was able to start getting a little more agressive with shots, but at the end of the year, I was hitting my good drives about 200 yards. You can tell a difference in the 2007 Golf Trip video.
Other than the golf trip with dad, the highlight of 2007 was on my 33rd birthday, when I played four rounds, one right after another. I played all four rounds in 6 hours, 50 minutes, shooting 98, 92, 92, and 87. The 87 included a 40 on the back side, which as of early 2008, is a personal best. I hit 369 shots in 410 minutes.
In early 2008, I took my second set of lessons, and learned a heck of a lot. I was excited about how I was going to start shooting in the 80s regularly. I went out and promptly shot a 113, followed by a 114, then a 105. Then I started breaking 100 again, often. There is always some tinkering going on with the swing, and that can sometimes be a dangerous thing. If you change too much at once, you can lose everything.
But I did break 90 a couple more times, and during the golf trip that year, broke 100 for the first time on a par-72 course, including a 92 which featured two birdies in three holes.
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