Thethe moon.

Apollo 14 captain Alan B. With a temporary iron 6 to become a footnote in history.

Francis O’Meet put golf in US headlines by winning the US Open in 1913. Gene Sarrazin put the Masters on the map by sending a 235-yard stroke to the albatross in the final round of his victory in 1935.

Mr. Shepard has outdone them all. Launch golf in space.

“You could say he put golf on the map of the moon,” Jack Nicklaus said this week. It’s something so unique about golf that Mr. Shepherd thought about the game so much that he took a golf club to the moon and hit a stroke. “

Mr. Sheppard waited until the mission was over before surprising American viewers and all but a few of the NASA personnel unaware of what he was carrying – or in this case, his socks. This is how I bring my golf gear into space.

“Houston, you might recognize what’s in my hand as an emergency floor sample;” Mr. Sheppard said, “It just so happens to be 6 real irons at the end. In my left hand, I have a little white ball familiar to millions of Americans.”

More than one bullet hit the surface of the Moon on its first two attempts. The third was described by the main party as a puzzling blow (shank). He hit his last hit with full force, or as hard as an astronaut can hit a golf ball while swinging with one hand in a 180-pound space zip compression suit (to the ground).

“We used to say it was the longest shot in world history because it hasn’t landed yet,” famous golf coach Butch Harmon said with a laugh.

M. Harmon est vaguement lié au célèbre coup grâce à sa relation avec Jack Harden père, l’ancien pro en chef du River Oaks Country Club à Houston à qui M. Shepard a demandé de lui construire un fer 6 qu’il pourrait emporter sur the moon. Mr. Harden has successfully attached the head of the Wilson Staff Dyna-Power 6 iron to a folding tool used to collect moon rocks.

To what extent ?

The shots have landed on the moon. It remains to be discussed how far the lead has gone.

“Miles, Miles, Miles,” Mr. Shepherd said in a moment broadcast in color to captive viewers.

Not entirely. The blow has been rated for years at 200 yards, which is remarkable considering most of his spacesuits restrict Mister Shepherd’s movement. He even trained in his spacesuit in a sand trap in Houston when no one was around.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary, British photographer Andy Saunders gave a more accurate report. Mr. Saunders, who is working on a book called “Apollo Remastered,” determined through digital optimization and video stacking techniques that the first shot went 24 yards. The second ball cut 40 yards.

Former PGA champion Jimmy Walker hits the ball with a 6-iron about 200 yards to the ground. Mr. Walker, a space enthusiast with skill and a passion for astrophotography, worked with the United States Golf Association (USGA) and Mr. Saunders in the lead up to the 14th anniversary of Apollo 14 to find out the extent to which he could strike iron 6 in one-sixth of the gravity of the moon.

“He was known to have said miles and miles. They took the conditions in which I played and said my ball would fly 4,600 yards and have just over a minute of comment time.”

This would amount to just over 2.5 miles (or just over 4 kilometers), for the golfer who tried the experiment with 6 traditional irons, golf shoes and a polo shirt.

What emerged after all these years was that Mister Shepherd had the idea of ​​taking a golf club to the moon. The inspiration came from Bob Hope, who carried a golf club pretty much everywhere he went: including a trip to NASA headquarters in Houston a year before the Apollo 14 mission. Doug Ferguson Bar – Associated Press