A Meticulous Man

Fred Haskins recalling a conversation with Charlie Hall, Birmingham Country Club Pro;

“I told him I was making $6,000 a year and he said, ‘Nobody can make $6,000 a year’. But I told him, ‘I’m in there with an apron on all day, making clubs, not just sitting around.’ I got orders from all over in the later years for sets of clubs like I’d make for Lt. Such-and-Such when he was stationed at Fort Benning.”

“You had to be a club-maker to be a pro in those days. We made the hickory-shafted wooden clubs and it was quite an art to it. A good pro knew how to make ‘em, how to put feeling into them. There were weeks, believe it or not, when I would sell as many as 50 or 60 sets. They were small sets, understand, four or five clubs to the set.”

Fred Haskins ran his pro shop meticulously. Every day, there was inventory: balls, tees, gloves. Every day, the books were balanced. Every sale that, recalls Royer who worked in the pro shop one summer, had to be recorded. Sell one ball, and you’d cross it out on the inventory ledger. “There wouldn’t be one thing missing,” Howard Pitts says. “He didn’t give away anything.” Fred Haskins was simply frugal. He bought nothing on credit; if he didn’t have enough cash to buy something, he’d save until he did. “He did indulge in a new car every year, an indulgence that bothered Mother a little bit,“ his daughter Magdalene “Joyce” Miller said. His frugality paid off; he made a small fortune playing the stock market. He invested in Coca-Cola and Royal Crown. “Had he not sold his Coca-Cola stock on the advice of a friend, he would’ve made even more money.”

Excerpts and interviews from:

Ledger Enquirer Newspaper

Cecil Darby Column

May 7th, 1971

Ledger Enquirer Newspaper

Ed Miles Article

June 29th, 1952