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Chilling on the links

Stress of the game no big thing to golf pro

Name: Gerry Ferguson

Age: 59

Occupation: Golf pro

Bio: This uncompromising NDG stud only started playing golf in his late teens, and while he doesn’t describe himself as “a natural,” he does acknowledge immediately feeling a knack for the sport, to the point where within three years of swinging his first nine-iron, both his golf pro friends and “mentors,” hall of fame-ers Stanley Horne and Jules Huot, were encouraging him to become a club pro. So, after a decade in the wilds of B.C. working as a logger, Gerry returned to Montreal in 1983 and upon completing a short apprenticeship soon scored himself a gig deep in the heart of Injun country as club pro for the private Kanawaki Golf Club, a job he stayed at for the next 15 years. Now employed by the forever imperiled Meadowbrook Golf Club in Côte-St-Luc, he figures he’s taught “thousands, not hundreds, but thousands” of people to play golf over the years, an activity he’s more passionate about than the game itself. “Golf is just a game, a great game, but some people become obsessed by it when it’s not important. Somebody in your family getting sick is important, golf isn’t. It’s only a game, there’s no need to be stressed while playing it—and that’s how I teach it.”

Has he ever instructed anyone who’s gone on to golfing greatness? “No, some of my students have surpassed my ability though. There’s an old Chinese proverb saying that if the teacher makes the student better than the teacher, then he’s done a pretty good job, you know what I mean?”

What he does in the off-season: Teaches golf “at a building on Cavendish in NDG. We don’t have a name, it’s not a registered golf school or anything, but we’ve got nets and mats and stuff and it’s a pretty good place to develop your game. I also do golf clinics and have several golf camps going in the summer. I work pretty well all year round.” To book yourself a golf lesson or any of the above, call him at (514) 947-3369.

What a private lesson with Gerry is gonna cost you: A “very, very reasonable” $50 per half-hour.

Does he witness a lot of students having temper tantrums when they screw up on the course? “Oh yeah, all the time, breaking all their clubs, throwing them in the river and walking away—this game can get to you.”

His response to this behaviour: “I just let it go. Nothing bothers me out there, it’s just a game.”

His greatest teaching strength: “My patience, I guess. People say I have the patience of Job. People don’t want to be belittled, they just want to learn the game. Some people just take longer than others, that’s okay.”

Is there a lot of stress over at Meadowbrook these days given that it’s constantly under threat of being turned into condos?“It’s nothing new, my boy, just another developer trying to take green space. We go through this every year. They’ve been talking about shutting it down for 30 years now. The city should just buy it and run it as a golf course, the same way they do with children’s playgrounds.”

Last book read: Positive Practice, by David Leadbetter.

Musical preferences: Beatles, Dylan, Motown.

Words of wisdom: “No tension.”

Comments: dimwit@hdot.net