Mark Twain once said about the game of golf, that “Golf is a good walk that is spoiled.” I know that first hand. I have been learning how to play the game for the past 5 years and I slowly but surely am getting better, but I hate the slowly part. That being said, being a golfer on the collegiate level is a tough go, in fact being a good golfer is a tough go regardless of being a young person or if you are on the Senior PGA tour. It is a tough game, and yet so many people use it blow off stress.

However, for those play for competition, it is anything but a way to blow off stress. It is a tense and often frustrating affair, and usually only the most mentally strong and disciplined end up winning it all.

For our alma mater, Golf is has long been one of the better sports with a lot of tradition. Last season, the Lion Women took 3rd place in the Southland Conference, the best finish for either team in the DI era. Both teams have been competitive in the conferences they have played in.

While the Women have not (yet) won a conference title, the Men have collected hardware from the conference championships 5 times and in the mid 1960’s were the cream of the LSC crop. The Lion Men won the second LSC tournament in 1942, but would not see another title until 1964. That sets the stage for the gold standard of Lion golf teams.

In 1964, The Lions were coached by the legendary C.W. “Boley” Crawford, who aside from his duties in helping draw up the plays in football with Coach Ernest Hawkins, spent his spring time on the links with “his boys” as he called them. There have been many a great story about Boley, but in the library archives, he was all about coaching to win because “I like to have fun, and winning is really fun, and if we aren’t winning, we aren’t having fun, and boys, I might get upset if we aren’t having fun.” (Thanks for that quote from the anonymous source) Crawford was a master recruiter as well, and he recruited a top set of linksters. The Lions won the tournament for the first time in 22 years and advanced to the NAIA National tournament, where Craig Metz won the individual title, the first time a Lion golfer had won an individual national title. Nick Brice joined him as a first team all american.

In 1965, Metz returned with a group that was loaded with talent and repeated as champions in conference and once again was invited to the NAIA national tournament in Rockford, Illinois. This time, the Lions were in the upper half of the field it came down the final hole. Eastern New Mexico had been nipping at the Lion’s heels the entire tournament, but Metz sealed the deal on the 18th hole, a par 4. Metz repeated as individual national champion, but he had to rely on his teammates to take home the largest golf prize in the NAIA. The Lions held off the Greyhounds but the literal slimmest of margins, winning by one stroke with a team score of 1201 to Eastern New Mexico’s 1202. For the second time school history and the second time in a decade, East Texas State were national champions in a team sport.

The ride back to Commerce was not exactly glamorous riding back in a station wagon, but driving home with the first place medals and trophies and knowing your name was going to be synonymous with “National Champions” made the drive that much easier. Metz would be invited to become a member of the PGA tour and played in 22 events in his career. Boley Crawford would be the first Coach of “The Hawkins Coaching Crew” to have a championship ring on his finger, and would have another 7 years later as the co-offensive coordinator of the 1972 football national championship team. Metz was inducted into the Lion Athletics Hall of Fame in 1985.

Like a couple of the national championship trophies, the 1965 Golf National Championship trophy gone AWOL, but that will change soon as we are moving into a new world, it is important to remember those that established the traditions that our student athletes are playing for, and our fans are rooting for.

Because 60 years ago, a group of talented young men led by a charismatic and gifted coach put Commerce and East Texas back on the map by being the last team standing on a field of athletic battle. Golf may be a good walk spoiled, but on that day 60 years ago, the long walk was completely worth it.