A little more about Donald Paul Villavaso.
Don Villavaso is one of a a kind.
I met Don while working in the golf shop at City Park in about 1981 or 82. He was talking about something in his right hand grip that Honald Millet, a former PGA Tour player from New Orleans had showed him.
I told him it was Baloney!
Go figure.
We became friendly when I produced MULTIPLE PICS of Hogan, Nicklaus, Snead, etc doing it the way I advocated.
Don is a world-class talent evaluator.
Don has managed to live his whole life basically on his own terms. He always says that the only things that matter are "Your next meal, your next 'session' with your partner, your next day to do whatever it is you like to do, and your next good night sleep."
Smart man.
In 1984, we both became full-time teachers at the City Park Driving Range. At the time there were a dozen other "teachers" and they hated both of us. Don started in the spring, and myself in the fall, and and by then, Don already had to worry about his well being. Fellow "Instructors" Dudley Geigerman Sr. & Jr. had mafia connections, and often were quite threatening.
Don goes about 6'3" 300+, but guns are guns.
Don was different than the other teachers because he TALKED about swing mechanics. I am not too sure if his repertoire of idea was the best in 1982, but I guarantee it was better than the other guys'.
By the time I started teaching for a living in October, and by the middle of the next year having video, training aids, daily tips on a sign, etc, the other teachers hated me more than Don. We became better friends.
Don figured out I knew what I was talking about, and would call everyday to ask questions.
He'd ask something like, "So babe, how do you teach golfers to make a backswing?"
I'd respond with, "I make them lean their spines 15° to the right, while theie right hip socket moved slightly toward the target, maybe 2 inches."
He reply with, "Now listen kid, I don't want to hear all of that BS. You need to explain it to me in CHILD-LIKE terms. If you can't, you really don't know it yourself, you are just reciting it."
He was right of course, Don always is.
I'll never forget the advice he gave me the night before my big 18-hole stroke play match with heated rival Larry Griffin.
"The Griff" and I had debated on my playing skills—and his—in a non-stop rant for about 5 years. Dudley Geigerman, always ready to book some bets, called me to see if I would play Griffin the next day at City Park (this is in June of 1986). I said no, only at a "real" course, one where he couldn't spray that driver all over dodge and still hit greens. Ten minutes later Dudley called and was frantic as people had already bet that I wouldn't show and wanted to collect their forfeit fees. Mad as hell, I told Dudley that I'd play Griffin at Putt-Putt Golf on Veterans Highway in Metairie, but would rather play a course like Lakewood. The Griff agreed to Lakewood, and the money was bet on both sides in record amounts.
So, that night, looking for some advice, I called Big Don.
"Babe, this is what you need to do. Don't watch him swing. That wild hard swing of his will screw you up, and he wants you to watch. Look at some birds in the trees. Make sure he knows you aren't looking at him, too. You'll be fine."
I was, of course. By the time Don and his brother came out to watch, I was one or two under, and four shots in the clear. I three-putted #18 because they turned the sprinklers on, because really, the match was long in the bag. I shot 72 to his 80, and became a bigger threat to golf in the city. Turns out I could play a little too.
By 1987, after the passing of my Dad, Donald, who is 31 years my senior, became my sounding board and advisor. We both had common enemies, and we started to play golf every weekday at 11 am.
He saw the dramatic improvement in my game in June of '87 after working with Ben Doyle.
(Taking about my game at the time) "He hit that driver dead straight and 300 yards, and hit the irons pretty good too." After seeing Tom Bartlett's even more impressive improvement, he became close with Tom as well.
Hilariously, Don & I won a very big Pro-Pro tournament later in '87 after being picked to finish dead last. Dudley—who knew better—reportedly took a bunch of bets betting ON US to win, and made a fortune.
Don made the trip to California to see Ben and play the great courses, and the amount of stories I could tell about those would fill a book.
But, more importantly, Don Villavaso took the knowledge he gained from myself, Ben Doyle, Tom Bartlett, Mike Finney, and Chris Hamburger, and fashioned himself into a fine teacher. For $40 an hour, you get a guy that attended multiple PGA Teaching Summits, has world class teachers as friends, and can fix you.
Sitting on his milk crate, weighing in at Refrigerator Perry, with a Radio announcers voice—"I did some radio. I went by Don Power"—Don might be worth the forty just to listen to him tell stories and tell you ahead of time—Nostradamus has nothing on him—what will and should happen.
Back in the early 90's, Pete Finney, Mike's dad, a local legend in Sports writing, was going to do a story on a big football game that Ole Miss was playing in that weekend, supposedly with a good chance to win. Mike told his dad that Don would have the scoop. "Ole Miss is a
HIGH-school team," was Don's now infamous reply to Mike's question. Of course, the Rebels lost by 30+.
Don worked in the "Phonograph Record Business" in the 50's. He and his buddy Keith Rush, later a New Orleans radio legend, started running "Record Hops." Basically a sock-hop without the band, just a local DJ spinning records. This was years before anyone else had such an idea. Keith Rush was making so much money that he turned down Elvis' (yes,
THE Elvis) inquiry into having Rush manage him.
Don worked for NASA (yes, THE NASA) when they were building the Saturn 5 rocket to get to the moon. The eastern New Orleans plant had 30,000 workers.
"I just punched in at 8am and went straight to the race track to bet the horses, and then to the Park to play golf. My friend punched me out. They never knew anything about it. I knew about a thousand people working there, and none of them worked a lick. But they had 30,000 people working, and the rocket got built."
Don is so smooth, that he is the only person alive that has never paid to get on to 17-mile drive on the Monterey Peninsula. He just flashed his PGA Apprentice card from 1989, and said he was going up to Cypress Point to see Jim Langley."
If I tried that, they handcuff me.
After being right a thousand times in a row, he got one wrong. I was arguing about something else he would up being right about one day, and I brought up the one time he was wrong.
After reading two columns in a row about Rob Noel by Dave Lagarde, the late Frank Mackel's bought-and-sold henchman who wrote for the New Orleans Times-Picyune until they finally fired him, I was convinced that Rob was coming to City Park to be Director of Instruction. Don told me emphatically, "No WAY Mackel and Benandi (the Director of Golf and Head Pro at City Park in the 90's) are going to give up ANY stardom. He is NOT coming."
So, I brought that little incorrect assumption up to Don, trying to get him to agree his isn't always right.
(Talking about Noel) "If I'da known that Rob was a bald headed-tobacco chewing-cigar store Indian from Abbyville (a very small town in Loozyana), and absolutely NO threat to Mackel, I'da said they go pick him up and drop him of at the 'Range."
He was right even when he was wrong.
I went out with my wife Lisa for the first time on a Tuesday. Sitting on her sofa at 9:15 pm on that Thursday, Don calls. "Hey babe. You over by that girl's house? Listen see if she wants to meet Me and Penny and Tom (Bartlett) and Jenifer for dinner around the corner from her house at R & O's."
Now I had waited basically 39 years to get on this sofa, and I wasn't leaving. But Lisa wanted to "meet my friends" and as much as I didn't want to scare her off, we went and had a nice quick meal. I dropped her off at the door, and went home to sleep. At 2 pm, the phone rang. "Hey Babe," it was Donald, who at the time never went to bed until 4am, often playing Canasta with Tom and Jen. "So that's it?" Don continued. "What are you talking about Don?" I honestly asked. "Do you HEAR this guy Torm?" He asked Bartlett who was on the phone three-way. I repeated my claim of total confusion.
"Listen kid, if you don't marry this one, don't come crying to me with your problems."
Don has never been more right.
I have been in the car with four people, all telling Big Don stories, all doing Big Don imitations. Trust me, no one runs out of material or laughs.
I could go on for days, but I need to save the best material for a rainy day.
"Absolutely, Babe."
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