Mary Bea Porter-King - Part 1 (The Early Years)

Intro Music 0:07

Straight down the middle. It went straight down the middle.

Mike Gonzalez 0:13

Then it started to Welcome to another edition of FORE the Good of the Game and Bruce Devlin. Not only do we have our second guest from the great state of Hawaii, we've got a lady that uh has just compiled an incredible record in the game of golf, both as a player, I guess as an administrator, uh as a coach. Uh she could probably she wears a lot of hats, let's put it that way.

Bruce Devlin 0:39

She sure does. Not only does she ha wear a lot of hats, she's in four Hall of Fames. She was a collegiate All-American. A member of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews. And she has a motto which I like very much. Just leave things a little bit better than the way you found them. And it is a pleasure to have Mary Bea -Porter King with us this morning. It's been a long while, Mary Bea. Great to see you.

Mary Bea Porter-King 1:09

Thank you, Bruce. Um, I'm honored to be here and just um to spend time with you and hopefully um enlighten enlightens you and um of uh my time playing golf. And um, but again, I'm just honored to be here with you both.

Mike Gonzalez 1:26

Yeah, thank you. Well it's great to have you, Mary Bea. And uh, we talked about a little earlier. We're gonna take you down memory lane, and uh memory lane always starts with uh your start, which I guess came uh we won't say the year or the date, but back in Everett, Washington.

Mary Bea Porter-King 1:43

Yeah, thank you for bringing that up. Um right away. Uh I was born in Everett, Washington. I have absolutely no memory of it because my father was in the retail business and um was soon transferred down to Southern California where I actually I grew up. Have that's where my memory started. So I have no memory, but I I uh do know that I was born in Everett, Washington. Never been there other than a few moments in the hospital.

Mike Gonzalez 2:09

Well, let's talk about Southern California and Costa Mesa and tell us a little bit about uh growing up there, talk about your folks, uh uh siblings, uh friends, what some of your earlier memories?

Mary Bea Porter-King 2:24

Well, my parents started playing golf two years before I did at Huntington Beach Golf Club, which is a little muni course in Huntington and great course, and um they had me go out and caddy for them, push their carts around. I think that was my first memory of golf. And they soon joined Lost Coyotes Country Club, which is uh it was a great family golf course in Buena Park, California, right by Disneyland. And at that time, Betty Hicks was the head pro of our club, and um she started a junior program. Seven of us turned professional from that program to play the tour, it was amazing, and she made sure from the moment we started that um we knew what we were doing. Uh, we had to pass a written rules test. Uh as you've noted, that I am dyslexic, so it took me a third of my summer to pass that. I was seven years old, but we couldn't play on the golf course till we could pass that rules test, which had a lot to do with etiquette and taking care of the course. And uh yeah, that probably that motto that I try to live by is leave things and leave the golf course better than I found it, probably came from Betty. Um, because um she was very strict with us, which was great, and um we had to earn our way to play. And uh like I said, she was very successful in developing some some fine good talent coming up.

Mike Gonzalez 3:58

Yeah. You know, you've given me an idea, and that's maybe uh having you back with Bruce and I to do an episode about the life of Betty Hicks because she played such an important role in the early development of the tour, having been one of the co-founders of the predecessor tour back in 1944, the WPGA. Tell our listeners who are going to be listening 20, 50, 100 years from now a little bit about that woman.

Mary Bea Porter-King 4:23

Well, Betty is, as you would know, as you may not know, was an amazing athlete and very, very bright. Um she loved she was, you know, to me, she was a real trail trailblazer. She was a pilot, a professional golfer. Um I, you know, as you know someone as a child, uh, you don't know all those things about her. Um to me, I remember seeing her one year playing in Sacramento at a tournament, and Betty was Betty came to see me, and my brother was with me, and he and I both started under her. And uh I thought Betty was probably eight feet tall. Um, because in my eyes, she was eight feet tall. And you know, and there was a part of me that feared her because you know I wasn't afraid of her, but I mean it was you respected her so much. And when I my brother hadn't seen her in years, and I said, Bill, I said, That's Betty Hicks, and he goes, That's not Betty Hicks. And I said, Yeah, that's Betty Hicks. He goes, No, it's not, she's much taller. I said, No, that's Betty Hicks. And and uh, but Betty was uh a great athlete and a softball player, and I growing up with an older brother, loved baseball, loved, and so she'd have me catch for her. She was loved to pitch. And I being a stubborn little kid, uh never wanting to show any pain at all, she fired at me. And then the gloves in those days didn't have any padding at all, and I wasn't about to show her that it hurt, you know. I was gonna keep catching her as long as I could. And uh I you know, my parents um they'd allow me and my friend Louise uh Hamill stay with Betty. We'd spend over the night and and uh I mean she she you know, she towed the line with us, that's for sure. There's no monkey business. And uh, but I just remember her as as um someone that I had such great respect. And she introduced me to all the games greats when I was young. And she drove me down to the Mickey Wright Invitational, uh, and it's where I first met Mickey and Carol Mann, the first time I met Carol Mann, and I was probably eight, ten years old. Um Kathy Whitworth, I mean, all of them were there, and uh that soon became what I wanted to be when I grew up because uh I saw their cars parked in the parking lot, and they were, I believe they were Buicks, and they were the size of ten cars now. Uh they were enormous and they had their names on the side of the cars, and I thought, wow, that is the coolest thing I've ever seen. So um, not knowing what those cars did and how far they traveled, but it sure looked like fun to me.

Mike Gonzalez 7:14

Yeah. Well, Betty must have been a pretty good teacher because uh it was only 12 months or so after you started the game that you were able to do a clinic with Patty Berg. Tell us a little bit about that.

Mary Bea Porter-King 7:27

I did. And yeah, well, Patty came to our club almost annually uh as I grew up, and uh she came and played and had a clinic as well. I mean, a playing clinic, and Betty, I wanted a caddy for her. Of course, the bag was bigger than I was, and but again, I was too little tough, and you know, I wasn't about to say that it's too heavy for me, but um, I I'd go out with that big Wilson staff bag and and drag it along and no, I'm fine, I'm fine, you know. But uh I started giving clinics with her when I was eight, and then I actually later in my career uh went to Patty Berg Clinic School as we had to if we were on Wilson staff for a while, and and uh um that was a amazing memory with Patty.

Bruce Devlin 8:15

Uh you know, but a lot about those clinics.

Mary Bea Porter-King 8:19

Yes, you have I'm sure you have. But I just I remember watching them throughout my life, you know, and anytime Patty was around, I I would go watch them, and it was uh she was just the best. She was an amazing woman and so kind. Good to me.

Mike Gonzalez 8:37

A lot of the ladies that told us about these clinics were the ones that were called upon by her to come up and execute a cut, a fade, a highball, you know, a lot of pressure.

Mary Bea Porter-King 8:49

And that's what she would do to us as well. See she continued that. And and the sad part for me, and maybe it's a good part, is it's that I really didn't, I've never I was not a mechanical player, I was a field player, and which is pretty much what Betty taught me. When uh Betty taught me and she gave me a lesson, she would type out that lesson for me, and the reminders of her lesson, which I still have, would be is my left thumb covered by my right hand? Because I'd have to look down and see that my grip, you know, because I had a kind of a split grip. And um, they were very simple little cues, and so I really never understood how I I couldn't tell you how I hit a fade or a slice or a hook or a you know anything other than I could do it. And then I when someone asked me in a clinic one time, you know, how do you do that? I said, Well, I just think hook, you know, I think slice and and I hit it. So yeah, I just think that way. So you know, I see the ball doing that, and that's how I was taught. So it was pretty simple.

Mike Gonzalez 9:54

So, Mary B, you talked a little bit about being taught at an early age by Betty Hicks, uh early, early uh exhibition with the great Patty Berg, who was the master of exhibitions uh and clinics. Uh what did you learn from those ladies at that age? What do you remember? I mean, you mentioned you talked a little bit about the grip, but were some other things that really stand out all these years later?

Mary Bea Porter-King 10:16

You know, the the one thing about being a child when you're around these people, and and uh I don't know, Bruce, if we can think back as being a child, but uh I teach a lot, young people, that I just had a young boy that's 16, 17 years old, and he's like all in his head thinking now way too many thoughts. And I said, Well, when when did you start playing? He said, I was 11. I said, Well, play like you're an 11-year-old. Okay, and so when I was eight, nine, ten and doing these clinics, I thought I could beat Patty Berg, you know, and I mean I I didn't think I could ever miss a shot. And um, and I think that's kind of the mindset of being a child. Uh I just I don't know, I th I thought I was pretty good. And I think I was pretty good, but um I I learned from them uh I I watched everything they did, and and I think what impressed me the most as a child is you know the the way they dressed, their shoes, because I was too little to wear golf shoes and and be able to make noises on the concrete with cleats in those days, you know, which was a big deal to be able to get shoes that made noises, and and uh finally I I think I got a pair of shoes that was probably five sizes too big, but I wore them anyway, just so I could be really cool and make those noises on the concrete. But um, but yeah, I mean I just I I admired them. I um you know I respected them all so much and and really didn't have a clue being that young as to what they were really doing and how much they were doing for me for my future. Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 12:02

And and you know, at age seven and eight, um, while your game is probably developing quicker than most seven or eight-year-olds, given the sort of teachers you you're around, um you've got in your head that you probably want to play this professionally because it seems so cool from what you saw, but there was a long way to go, wasn't there?

Mary Bea Porter-King 12:21

Long ways to go. But, you know, it still was always a dream. Um, you know, I wanted to be a veterinarian and I wanted to be a meter maid, which I thought was really cool too, to ride a motorcycle around and mark cars that are parked illegally, but uh I thought that was cool, but yeah, but always was it um you know to be on tour. So that that I always helped too. And I also knew that I probably needed an education, but I never thought I never thought about if I didn't make it. So I just thought I should do those things and sequence before I got to the tour.

Mike Gonzalez 12:57

Yeah, yeah. We we always like to ask about uh your earliest remember uh memories of the equipment you played back then.

Mary Bea Porter-King 13:06

Well, I you know again, Betty um uh I had a set of sawed off clubs, which is why I had such a long backswing, which was good. I wish it were longer today. I just keep getting shorter. But um, and um I believe I I did get a set of Patty Berg irons when I was young. And um, and then to fill in, because that was sort of small set, and I would Betty would pull clubs out of Lost and Found, and I would get those, you know, as I grew. And um, you know, equipment was what you had, and what you know, you couldn't really afford great equipment. You just played with what you had and you figured it out. You know, you had a mixed bag of clubs.

Mike Gonzalez 13:56

Another thing that we've talked about a lot with our women guests is the opportunities or lack thereof for women, particularly back when you were um growing up, you know, uh reaching college uh age, high school age. Uh this was well before Title IX, which leveled the playing field theoretically for the men and the women. So uh back in your day, you might have found a high school with a team, you might not have, you might have played for the boys' team. Anyway, you you get an age where you start considering what your high school years are going to look like, and uh I guess you had somebody come recruit you, didn't you?

Mary Bea Porter-King 14:35

Well, again, I like I said my father was in the retail business, so we moved a bit, and um uh when I uh it's mostly boys in all the programs that I, you know, at at Los Coyotes with Betty, it was always the boys. In fact, my brother who started the same time I did, he quit playing at age 12 because I was beating him. So um, and I'm three years younger than he was, so but um and I played all the time with the boys and I love playing by myself. Uh Los Coyotes had a third nine that I could go out and play, and um and I'd go out by myself as long as I could, and and uh but there there weren't the opportunities in high school. Um and I ended up going to high school to an all-girls school when my father moved up north into Los Angeles from Orange County, and uh we didn't have a golf team, we did have volleyball teams and competed against other schools, but I got a scholarship to go there, uh, an athletic scholarship to go to Westlake, and it's now Harvard Westlake School, but it was a girls' school when I attended, and and uh I was fortunate to uh be able to practice with the UCLA team and because of Eddie Marons. And uh and I was fortunate that Eddie allowed me to play over at Bel Air and practice because it was right virtually within a couple miles of the school. So uh, but I never really competed in high school golf. Uh Southern California had an amazing junior golf program, as I'm sure you're aware, of how many great uh great players have come out of Southern California over the years, and and I was fortunate for that. And we had tournament after tournament, and um and really what happened is that one parent would load their car, usually a station wagon full of five or six kids, and we all sat on each other and clubs are on our heads, and they'd dump us off early in the morning, and they'd come back late at night, and we'd be putting on the green looking for a matches to so we could light where the hole was and we can continue to play games on the green. But it was mostly boys, but we did have girls' flights, and we had some really good players. We had Jane Bass and Cherry Booth, that was my nemes, and Martha Wilkinson that were great amateur players and continue to play amateur. Um, and uh, but I I couldn't afford to play amateur golf because I didn't have the the one my parents weren't going to sponsor me through that. Yeah, no, yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 17:09

As you mentioned, you you talked about some of the other sports you were involved in. Of course, you were a um multi-sport athlete, uh particularly at the collegiate level. But I'm sure as a as a young girl you would have played basketball and volleyball and softball, and and uh how did they all rate with golf included in the mix? I mean, what got the priority and what sort of fell by the wayside over time?

Mary Bea Porter-King 17:32

You know, I having an older brother, he's three years older, and he's a really good athlete and still is, um, and he played all sports. And so I was either his receiver in football or his catcher in baseball, or um no matter what sport he was playing, I was either defending and he liked to box too. I I got to be his opponent in boxing. Um, but uh he he uh he's the reason that I I love sports. And uh golf was always there. Um and I love golf, but I also look forward to playing other sports. And uh I was before Title IX, so I'm very grateful that when I did get into college uh that I was able to play four sports through college. And uh my my other sports, my it's funny how things have changed, but my other three sports, it was the same coach, and she knew that I was going to play golf over the other that sport for that season. And I don't think I missed much, to tell you the truth, but she knew that golf was a priority.

Mike Gonzalez 18:39

Yeah. So all girls' school, of course, uh, we've talked about Eddie Marin, we've talked about with some of his players on the podcasts over the over the last couple of years. Uh had access to places like Bel Air Country Club. Doesn't get much better than that, does it?

Mary Bea Porter-King 18:55

No, no, not at all. And I got to play with some, I'd go out and play with Andy Williams in the afternoon, you know, and I mean at celebrities that I I would never have an opportunity to meet, and uh they were all very kind to me, and I got to play along with them. Jim Gardner was uh uh I played with him a lot as a child. Um and uh you know they they were all very kind to me. They didn't like me beating them, but they were kind to me.

Mike Gonzalez 19:24

Well, Bruce Devlin could go on and on about that celebrity golf scene down in Southern California, but uh one thing we did want to ask you about uh you were tutored in math and science during your college years by someone who turned out to be a pretty famous lady. Who might that have been?

Mary Bea Porter-King 19:44

Who might that have yes. Well, that would be Sally Ride. Um and Sally and I, Sally was on scholarship, hers was academic, mine was for athletics, and uh I wasn't the brightest kid at this school, but uh I was very fortunate to attend Westlake, now like I said, Harvard Westlake. And Sally was a classmate of mine and also a wonderful athlete. Um she was a tennis was her priority sport, but she played volleyball with me and basketball, and science and math were her strong suits. I'm not sure I found one academically, but she uh she would always help me and tutor me uh in both science and math. And when Sally uh graduated from high school, she went to Stanford and uh she got a degree in in something that I couldn't spell or tell you what it was. And and I saw her not long before she passed away, which is so sad, but um she was laughing because she said, My dad was so happy when I became an astronaut. He said, I try to tell people what you do, and I have no idea what it is your degree is in. And but when you became an astronaut, they all knew what that was. So I was just so happy with that. So and she just yeah, she was uh uh a very bright, bright woman, and and to have gone in space twice and is pretty remarkable. So I was fortunate to spend time with her.

Mike Gonzalez 21:16

Yeah. So during this time, uh as uh as we understand you you would spend your summers uh away from California, and as you did had a chance to uh compete a little bit while you were there, that must have gotten the locals upset a little bit, I would think.

Mary Bea Porter-King 21:34

How did you read that? Um so my like I mentioned, my father moved around a lot, and that's why I ended up at Westlake. Um they moved to Omaha, Nebraska, and I being a bratty little Southern California girl, couldn't imagine myself going to school in Omaha, Nebraska. No offense, because I end up loving Omaha, Nebraska and the people there, but I finished high school in in LA. But did spend my summers back there and played in there in the Omaha City Championship. And I would think I was 15 or 16 when I first started. And they had never had anybody shoot in the 70s for three rounds. And so I won by large a large margin. And the women that had been winning this for years were not pleased. But the uh the gentleman that wrote for the Omaha Herald thought it was great that some new blood came in and and uh won that won the city championship. But after I left, they did change that you had to be 18 to play. So uh yeah, so it was kind of sad. I yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 22:44

That's that's that's interesting. Well, uh you know, we're we're back in the late 60s now, 68, 69, let's say. You're thinking about college at a very interesting time in American history.

Mary Bea Porter-King 23:00

I am. Um, and again, I I I hate to say that my world was pretty sh, I say shallow and narrow, you know, that I was so involved in sports and what I was doing that um I wasn't totally aware of what was happening in the world as much as I probably should have been. And um having again an older brother who was um going to ended up going to the military because of Vietnam era and uh big drug era, you know, marijuana was becoming the big thing in the scenes, and I I didn't know anything about it, you know. I mean I uh I realized that we were at war in Vietnam, but as far as marijuana, that was not a a thing I would know. And I still have a letter my brother wrote me from college this to be aware to, you know, because he knew I'd be going off to college the next year and and uh just be careful with what was out there. But it was a uh a different time, but again, I I guess my life was so consumed in sports that uh I was pretty naive.

Mike Gonzalez 24:13

So tell us, Mary B about the process that you did go through in making college choices. I mean, you know, the scene was different, I'm sure, than what it is today in terms of how schools uh incent uh recruit, etc. You must have had a few choices. Uh what do you remember from those times?

Mary Bea Porter-King 24:30

Well, there was a school in Texas in Odessa, Odessa College that was really big in women's sports. Jimmy Russell was the uh coach there. And uh somehow I didn't see that Odessa, Odessa, Texas was a place I wanted to go since I'd been hanging out with UCLA. And I wanted uh I wanted to go to UCLA, but unfortunately, when my father moved back to Omaha, my parents moved back, um I lost my California residency. So I didn't qualify. You know, I finished, there were only 39 in my graduating class from Westlake, and I think I finished like 35th in my class or something, but you know, which wasn't bad. But um ended up Arizona State, you know, I knew that Joanne Carner had been there 10 years before I did, and she was one of my yeah, uh I I loved Joanne and what she was doing, and and well Jane Bass and Cherry Booth also went there, and um so I I ended up going there and uh it was a great decision, and it was in those days I arrived on campus uh the first time seeing campus, um, and uh moved into the dorm and moved myself over and uh I got a car that my brother had purchased, and so I got his leftovers and off I went to ASU. So it's a great I I was there for almost five, four and a half years basically.

Mike Gonzalez 26:04

Yeah, so I mean right from the beginning, did you uh uh get into the sports scene with all the all the various sports you ended up lettering in?

Mary Bea Porter-King 26:14

I did. Um because I was a fiscal education major, so I was around there all the time and and uh I I the you know there was recruiting for softball and recruiting for basketball and volleyball, and those are all sports that I love to play. Basketball is probably my favorite sport to play, and we only had one uniform. We wore it for all three sports. Uh and uh I noticed when I look back at some of the pictures of team pictures, I'm like, well, the same thing I wore for basketball. That's volleyball. Oh, yeah, they're all the same. Uh and we, you know, in golf, we checked out a little canvas carry bag that I think said ASU on it, and uh we got a sleeve of balls to go play a tournament, got three balls, and and we drove everywhere.

Mike Gonzalez 27:04

Yeah.

Mary Bea Porter-King 27:04

And uh those years we were in the whack. So, you know, we'd go to UTEP and we'd go up to BYU and Utah and um New Mexico, New Mexico State. So, and um kind of long drives, but that's what you did to play.

Mike Gonzalez 27:21

I bet that canvas bag had a little brown trim on it and had a Wilson brand on it. Do you remember?

Mary Bea Porter-King 27:27

Um, you know, it could have. I mean, I that's what I carried as a kid. I carried that little canvas bag, and um, yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 27:35

I still carry a small moonwalk bag with ping, but uh yeah, because at the same time I would have been playing high school golf, and that's what we were carrying was those uh Wilson canvas bags. We we'd put we we took magic markers and put in block letters our our name on the bags. We thought we were so cool.

Mary Bea Porter-King 27:52

Wow, I didn't even think of that. I could have been well, I had to turn it back into it because you the equipment room, you only could check it out for the tournament, and you had to bring it back. So you had your own bag.

Mike Gonzalez 28:03

It was college bag.

Mary Bea Porter-King 28:05

It was college issue, yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 28:07

Yeah, my memories of golf back then for golf team was we were issued one Lee Trevino golf glove for the season, which wow uh got pretty funky as the season went on back in that day, and we were issued one club special Kushnet golf ball for every match.

Mary Bea Porter-King 28:26

Oh, one. Well, I I was lucky to have three and three balls, and I don't requ I mean I've always played titless, but I don't recall what they were. We're just happy to have a ball that was white, because you know, most of the balls I had in my bag, they turned yellow in those days.

Mike Gonzalez 28:45

Without a smile on them.

Mary Bea Porter-King 28:47

Without a smile, without being cut in half. That's true.

Mike Gonzalez 28:52

Well, you had uh a lot of success athletic in school. I mean, uh we'll talk a little bit about golf, but uh uh you know, you had championship teams uh playing second base in the in the 1991 uh sorry, 91, must have been 71, uh College Softball World Series Championship. Um so you had some success other than golf, didn't you?

Mary Bea Porter-King 29:17

We did. Um my softball team, uh I grew up you know with my brother. Uh I usually uh what little I had played, I played mostly short and third base because I had a pretty good arm, but in on that softball team, most of those young women went on to play professionally. Um played professional softball. So uh I moved over to second base, which was not anything I was familiar with, but we played the World Series in Omaha at at Platte Field, I think, the same where the men played. And um we stayed with a friend of mine, because I knew people in Omaha at that point, and he was a principal at Millard High School, and we all stayed in the basement and slept on the floor, and uh we ended up winning the World Series. So uh that was quite a quite a thrill just to play in the World Series and and then win it.

Mike Gonzalez 30:13

Yeah, and uh I think you won the the equivalent of the NCAA championship for women's golf for a couple of years in the early 70s as well, right?

Mary Bea Porter-King 30:21

We did. And uh my dear friend Kathy Matt, one one individual is a as a uh sophomore, she and I are still good friends and see each other and still um helping we we run the old women's uh transnational championship, the old trans-Mississippi tournament together. Now we had to change the language of it, but it's um it's the Ladies National Golf Association. So but I remained friends with the with most of those players of those days. So it was great.

Mike Gonzalez 30:53

It was one of those years you were voted college athlete of the year. That's quite an honor.

Mary Bea Porter-King 30:58

I know. I I must have been some must have been good in those days. I don't know what's happened. Yeah, but no. I was uh I say if I hadn't had sports, uh not knowing that I was dyslexic, not knowing why school was so difficult for me, because I didn't I wasn't diagnosed until I was 32. And uh when I went back to Westlake to talk to my teachers, whom I'd remained friends, and uh they felt terrible because in those days they didn't know, and they just thought I was lazy. And I said, lazy. I'd spend I'd lay awake all night trying to I know, and I say it was everything was so hard. The nice part was as hard as I worked at Westlake, it did make college a lot easier for me um because of the education I had for high school. But it wasn't easy, and and uh but my all my self-esteem came from sports because I was a good athlete, and and uh if I hadn't had that, I wouldn't be talking to you today for sure.

Mike Gonzalez 31:59

Well well, just staying on the dyslexia thing, because we I I don't know that much about it, but uh, I can imagine as you get diagnosed, you know, the light starts going on, right? Oh, now I understand, and there are plenty of coping mechanisms and skills that you develop, isn't that right?

Mary Bea Porter-King 32:17

There is. Uh and in those days, now they teach you from a very young age how to cope. I I had to figure out how to do that and didn't know I was doing that, but in order to get through school and and know what they're wanting from me, that was most difficult. And when I took the test for when I took the test, I was the oldest in there by 25 years. Um they were all little children, and uh they they and all the tests they gave me had just figures in it, have circles and squares and triangles and different numbers possibly, and but I could figure out what they wanted by they take three three tests, and that by the second test I could figure out what you're trying to get from me. Um and so it's hard to get a mean score on me. But um, yeah, he he the doctor said to me, he said, I can't believe you ever graduated high school, more or less got through college. So I said, Well, I don't know, I figured it out. So, but it's just it's one of those things I do not enjoy reading uh because it is so hard. Uh I do learn by listening. Um, I've always been auditory. I play golf that way, so um, you know, it's more rhythmic, um, kinesthetic. Yeah, I don't think a lot about it.

Mike Gonzalez 33:37

Yeah, interesting, interesting. Well, as as um as your game develops in college, then you begin thinking about what comes next. Uh you know, you get to you get a degree, you're starting to think about uh do I still want to be a veterinarian? And uh I guess you had a family friend that uh kind of raised their hand and said, Hey, uh, we're willing to give you a little financial support out there if you want to try this golf thing.

Mary Bea Porter-King 34:05

That was really nice. And and uh as a family friend out of New York, and uh was a friend of my father's in business in the business world because my father had then moved, uh they moved back east at that point. Uh they were living in Connecticut and my father working in New York, and his name was Victor B. Handel, and uh he and his family were always so kind to me, and and he offered me uh to help get me started on tour. And uh so I knew that as soon as I finished the then NCAA and IA uh that I would go qualify. But in those days you couldn't even mention the word tour, you and that you lost your amateur status if you said I'm gonna be a pro. And uh so it was very quiet. And uh unfortunately, Mr. Handel passed away about three about three, four weeks before qualifying school, and um, yeah, I just figured, well, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I'll have to go work and earn enough money to do that. And somehow Karsten and Louise Solheim heard about it, and uh they both called me and they you know expressed their you know concern and and uh and uh condolences to my sponsor, but they said, would could we sponsor you? And I'm like, wow, um so all unbelievable. Um and they so all my mail went uh 2201 West Desert Co. Phoenix, Arizona. And uh they just send all your mail and your bills here and we'll handle it. Pretty easy. And um, so it was a a bit of a change for me because I had grown up on Wilson. Um, you know, grown up looking at a a different club, but um much different. And my very, very different club, and especially in those days, especially in those days. And and I had some great conversations with Karsten over the years. You know, I'd go to lunch with him, and he loved to draw diagrams on the table about things. And I was having a I always hooked the ball. I you know, I had a a mean hook if I that was my miss. And uh he his woods that came out looked like they were gonna like if I hit it, it would go between my feet. And I said, Carsten, I said, you know, I can't look at this club. What what do I do? And and I said, I it I I it looks like it's just gonna go left of my left shoe. And he says, Mary B, let me have the club. Stand over there, stand over there. You now look at it. And I'm looking facing him, he's got the club down. I said, but I don't stand over there. I stand over here, and I said, I don't know what to do. I'm scared to death I'm gonna hit it so far left, I'll never find it, you know. And uh he he was just he was amazing, he and she both uh what they did for women's golf. And that I would not be having this conversation with you today without Karsten and Louise Solheim, I can tell you that. And I've remained friends with the family and especially John. Um, and uh I I've been very, very fortunate.

Mike Gonzalez 37:12

I'm sure you thought a lot about uh when you came to that fork in the road regarding support and how do I proceed with tour life, how your life could have been different had uh those uh the Solheims not come into your life.

Mary Bea Porter-King 37:28

Been very different. Uh I say I I don't think I'd be sitting here with you uh had they not picked up the phone and called me.

Bruce Devlin 37:36

In 2009, I got a phone call from John's assistant. And he said to me, Mr. Devlin, we've been looking through records, and I see where you won five tournaments using the ping answer putter. Uh did you ever get did you ever get your gold putters? And I said, No, I didn't see any gold putters, so yeah, and congratulations to you.

Mary Bea Porter-King 38:05

It is very special, and I uh I have only one in the vault. I would love to have five, but I too didn't have one, and I was uh their first LPGA win with the equipment, uh not just with the putter. And uh and I didn't realize why it was such a big deal, but uh I did play a full bag of of pings and and my only victory was with ping. And um, but John and then so John and Sonny were here, and I have my ping putter that they give you here, and it's uh it wasn't in great shape, so they sent me another one, um, you know, to replace it. So um, but uh if anyone ever knew what the Solheim family did and does for the game of golf and for a military and for just for people um around the world, they would be shocked because they are a privately held company and they they don't talk about what they do and give back.

Mike Gonzalez 39:05

Thank you for listening to another episode of For the Good of the Game. And please, wherever you listen to your podcast on Apple and Spotify, if you like what you hear, please subscribe, spread the word, and tell your friends until we tee it up again for the good of the game. So long, everybody.

Intro Music 39:26

Whack down the fairway. It went smack down the fairway. It's not it just like just offline.