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As a youngster, he learned golf under the stern eye of his brother Homer, who showed him how to drive a ball toward a hole in a cow pasture, and gave him a kick in the pants every time he muffed a shot.
Today, muffing hurts almost as much.
Up from Caddy. Sam Snead was born and raised in Ashwood, a hamlet near the mountain resort of Hot Springs, Va. and its famed golf hotel, the Homestead. The five Snead brothers begged broken-shafted clubs from the Homestead caddy master, and replaced their splintered wooden shafts with whittled hickory sticks or old buggy-whip handles. Sometimes they carved an entire driver from a hickory sapling with a knotty root.
With his primitive clubs—and the pedagogy of brother Homer's foot—Sam developed his graceful and somewhat unorthodox swing. He never took a lesson, never hampered his free & easy game with the kinks and strains that often plague the rule-book golfer. At twelve, Sam took up caddying at the Homestead, studied the pros, and played the employees' course—nine tortuous holes on a mountainside called the "goat -course." The Sneads were poor (father Snead was a maintenance man in the Homestead's boiler room). In addition to caddying, Sam also worked as a soda jerk.
In school he was something of a dude, and a natural standout in every sport he tried. In baseball he was an outstanding pitcher and outfielder, played against local coal miners' teams. In football he was a fast backfield star (a "scat back" according to Snead). He was on the track team and he boxed. He found little time for books.
Often while his mother was cooking a meal, Sam sat beside the old Home Comfort stove and discussed his future with her. For a while he thought of going to college on a football scholarship. In the end, he chose golf.
The Discovery. Snead got out of high school in the depression year of 1932.
There were precious few jobs for untested young golfers. After a year's drudgery in a restaurant, Sam got his break: a job as shop boy at the Homestead golf shop. For $20 a month he repaired clubs, shellacked and finished woods, did odd jobs, and breathed the atmosphere of golf. One morning an elderly lady guest came into the shop and asked for a lesson. Both pros were busy, so Sam agreed to teach her.
Next day Sam had a job as teaching professional at the Cascades, an 18-hole golf course about three miles from the hotel.