It was the same old story. He could have been one of the half-dozen best athletes in his sport—but he couldn’t give up the nightclubs.

He did what Walter Hagen was supposed to have done—walked directly toward the first tee in evening clothes. He was wearing an alpaca or a tuxedo. He either had a glass in his hand, or a ’9-iron. He spent all day in the sun—and all night in the spotlight. He spent the day smelling the trees, the flowers, the greens—and he spent the night smelling perfume and booz.

Girls threw themselves at him. Some, he caught. But he preferred birdies to birds. He didn’t have much time for courtship. The minute he finished a round of golf, the band would strike up in some roadhouse nearby, and he couldn’t afford to miss that.

He came out of Wichita Falls in the 40s and, fatherless since age two and raised by a mother who took in sewing, lie was that offense against nature — an introverted Texan. He played baseball and golf but he gaveup baseball because, in golf, you didn’t have to depend on somebody else.

Shagging for Demaret

He began by shagging on the practice tee for Jimmy Demaret and, as baseball player, he thought you had to CATCH the 2-iron shorts. “I only missed three out of 24,” he tells you. Which tells you something about Demaret’s accuracy in those days too.
He says he held the peaches and butter-bean canning championship of North Texas and when asked how you can peaches and butter-beans, he answers: “Well, first, you go pick ‘em...”

The tragedy of Donald Ross Cherry’s life was not that he couldn’t play golf, it was that he could sing. From the time they found that out, the reason he wasn’t setting records was probably because he was making them.

He never had a lesson in his life—golf or voice— but he was too good at golf to give it up for singing. And vice versa. God gave him a swing and a beat.

Nobody has enough concentration to be both a Frank Sinatra and a Ben Hogan but Don Cherry made the cut in both professions.

He chased Arnold Palmer to Arnold’s first big tournament win, the National Amateur in 1954, when he had Arnold three down and six to play. Don Cherry was one of the first victims of the soon-to-be-famous Palmer Charge. He was a Walker Cupper. He played tense matches with the likes of Gene Littler, Bob Rosburg, Frank Stranahan, and won his share. When he turned pro, he led the Dallas Open after one round. He was one of five players who still had a shot at Palmer when Arnie won his Open in 1960. The course, fittingly, was Cherry Hills and Cherry went over the hills at 3-under par till the 17th of the final round where a 7 put him out of contention at 284.

At the Recording Studio

Meanwhile, back at the recording studio. Don had started out too bashful to sing in FRONT of a band—or even in front of a curtain. Jan Garber didn’t know this when he picked Don up, but seven days later, he gave Don $39 to go back to Wichita Falls with the observation he didn’t want a band singer who was going to phone in his solos.

Don had (and has) a range of 2.2 octaves which puts him up with the big hitters of THAT game, too. When you can wander up and down the keyboard 18 notes, that leaves you, musically, with an easy wedge to the green.

He scheduled club dates to coincide with tournaments. So, it was a good thing he wasn’t a ballet dancer. He got $35 for his first 800,000-seller record. But he didn’t need the money in those days. Not when there were so many guys out there with fat fast backswings who didn’t think a guy who sang that good could play that well.

Don was the only guy in Las Vegas last week who was starring in the Sahara Open ‘in the day and in the Sahara Lounge at night. Get him to sing you “The Green, Green Grass of Home” and shoot you a 67 with two 3-putt greens, and, if you don’t get goose-pimples, then you wouldn’t be impressed if Caruso went 3 for 4 in the World Series in the afternoon and brought down the house in “Pagliacci” at the Met that night.

-JIM MURRAY, Syndicated Columnist