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John Blain's avatar

Great column, Bill. My wife Marian (whom you know) played a lot of golf with Charlie Owens when she was in school at USF in Tampa. She has always told me that he was both a great guy and an unbelievably good player. As you probably know he had a fused left leg (couldn't bend it at all) and also played cross-handed. Sam Snead said that Charlie Owens was the best long iron player he had ever seen.

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Bill Fields's avatar

Appreciate it, John. Charlie Owens was quite a story, especially given the leg disability he had after the military paratrooper training accident. If I recall correctly, he told me and others that his first "club" was a tree branch he refined into.a makeshift implement. That is cool that Snead appraised his long-iron skills that highly---coming from Sam, that's high praise!

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