Babe Lichardus, a golf instructor extraordinaire to some of you, and a wonderful friend to all of us, died of cancer on Friday at 81 years of age. If you met him, even just once, you surely have a fond and probably funny memory of him. He was a man who always had a story for every occasion. From the tales of his PGA days to funny anecdotes about life, sex and everything else under the sun, no matter where we were, you could always find Babe holding court, giving advice, telling jokes and just putting a smile on everyone’s face. Hey, why did Babe bring one square of toilet paper back from the bathroom? Oh, of course, it’s a prop for a joke he wants to tell us. Hey, why is Babe lying on the floor of the clubhouse? Oh, he’s trying to demonstrate some stretching exercises to help Twoin with his stiff neck. Hey, why is the waitress rolling her eyes at us but with a huge grin on her face? Oh, Babe just said something to her of course. Babe was one guy who could tell you the same story four times and you’d still find it entertaining if he told it a fifth. He had such natural charisma, everybody just loved guy. There’s no question he’ll end up in heaven, the only question is how long he’ll hang out telling stories to St. Peter before going in.
Goodbye Babe. We’ll all miss you.
(Babe is the classy gentleman on the left, not the shady looking guy performing the stealth breast exam.)
Hi,
Just heard Babe died and googled up your touching tribute to him. And the photo shows you what a young competitor he was.
He was the pro at my inlaw’s and cousin’s club – Shackamaxon, where he was was a legend. I took a bunch of lessons from him at Anchor Golf Land in Whippany and truely loved the guy from minute one.
Last saw him there 5 years ago. Still 98 lbs and smoking. Asked him how he was doing and he said he had arthritis in his right hand but it didn’t stop him. He says “Dave, watch this”. He then swung my seven iron at a ball – letting his right hand let go and following through with only his left – which nailed the 175 yd flag. I told him “I’d be happy to play one-handed too if I could hit that flag with my 7”.
Anyway, we always go to Pal’s Cabin and see his 4 Jersey PGA plaques.
Dave
Thanks for that great story Dave. And yeah, in his last few years, he actually played more and more with that one armed follow through…and still consistently beat everyone at our monthly golf outings! We all still think of him often. Just this past weekend there were two instances. One was when I hit a really pure shot out of the rough and then looked at the grass mark right on the sweet spot of my clubface. It looked exactly like the clubfaces of Babe’s irons which were always all worn, but only on the sweet spot. The second time was when a member of our foursome blew a putt way past the hole, and my buddy did his best to imitate Babe’s distinctive scratchy voice in saying “You’ve got the touch of a village blacksmith”. 🙂