Tagged: golf

Billy Casper's new book “The Big Three and Me” is about golfing in the time of Gary Player, Arnold Palmer, and Jack Nicklaus. Casper won  51 PGA tournaments altogether, including the Masters and another US Open. He’s now in the World Golf Hall of Fame. Heady stuff for a kid who grew up poor and moved from place to place with parents who weren’t around much to take care of him. But Billy Casper found the game of golf, and in the process he found a gift.

Golf’s national championship has come to San Francisco. Right now, the game’s greatest players are teeing up at the Olympic Club, where they’ll compete in the US Open in two days time. It’s a true celebration of the game – not so much because of the stars who come out, but because of the workaday golfers who have the chance to take the same stage, like Todd Fischer. Until 2000, the golf instructor from Pleasanton had never played in the US Open.

“As a golfer, everybody’s dream, probably, is to play in the US Open once,” says Fischer.

The Visitacion Valley Middle School is located in the southern part of San Francisco – one of the poorest residential areas of the city. It's recess and kids are outside playing the typical sports: football, basketball. But at this school, there's also golf.

Tony Anderson, Visitacion Valley's site director, works with 20 to 30 kids every day at the schools practice range. One is a 13-year-old named Faletui Manu. “Manu is one of our students who's been with us. He's just walked up to practice on his little chip here,” says Anderson, before congratulating Manu on a nice shot.