To read “18 Holes With Bing” is enough to make one wonder if Crosby’s true passion in life was not singing but golf. The youngest of the famous crooner’s sons is uniquely qualified to shed light on his father’s embrace of the sport. Nathaniel, too, was smitten with the game. He won the US Amateur Championship in 1981 and later played professionally and hosted the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am in northern California. Their mutual love of the game created a strong father-son bond and gave Nathaniel a ringside seat to observe Bing’s golfing encounters with the rich and famous, from golfing legends Ben Hogan and Jack Nicklaus, to fellow entertainers Bob Hope and Louis Armstrong, plus an occasional round with Dwight Eisenhower.
Here’s an excerpt from 18 Holes With Bing:
“When I was a toddler, my father hired an Irish nanny, Bridget Brennan, and he deliberately chose her because she also was an accomplished golfer. She had been the lady captain of the Nenagh Golf Club in Beechwood, Nenagh, County Tipperary, Ireland. My parents interviewed several candidates, each of them undoubtedly qualified, but when my father learned that Bridget was also a golfer, well, she was hired virtually on the spot.
“I loved Bridget (and later named my daughter after her), and we had a great relationship. She introduced me to the game in the backyard of our home in Hillsborough, California. We had five acres and no swimming pool; Dad had had it filled in, giving us more room to kick a soccer ball or to hit golf balls on a scale sufficient for a young boy, though initially I hit only plastic balls. She taught me the stance, the grip, and other fundamentals. I was eleven when she died, and I was at her bedside for ten hours that night.”
