WHAT’S THE STORY?

IT was 50 years ago today that two of the most famous golf shots ever played took place on a rather rough and ready course – the Moon.

Astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American in space and commander of the Apollo 14 lunar mission, was a very keen golfer who decided to do something special on what was his only visit to the Moon. At 47 he was the oldest astronaut to land on the Moon, thus far.

On February 6, 1971, on the second day of his short stay on the Moon, he took out a makeshift iron and famously showed “a little white pellet that’s familiar to millions of Americans” to the watching television audience.

In fact he had two golf balls, and after several swings – fresh air shots they would have been called, if there was any air on the Moon – he managed to hit both balls.

Shepard said at the time the second shot flew for “miles and miles and miles” but, as we shall see, that was something of an exaggeration. The ball did, however, fly high, thus proving the weakness of the Moon’s gravity which is about one-sixth that of the Earth.

HOW DID HE MANAGE IT?

A LOT of nonsense has been written over the past 50 years about how Shepard “smuggled” the club and balls on board, but in fact he had persuaded American space agency Nasa’s top brass that showing a golf shot on the Moon would be a very good way of explaining the lack of gravity to people back on Earth.

Apollo 14 was a massively important exercise for NASA, following as it did the collapse and near disaster of the Apollo 13 mission. If 14 failed, and it nearly did several times on the outbound flight, then the Apollo programme was doomed to be abandoned.

NASA chose their team well – Shepard, Antares lunar module pilot Edgar Wallace and Kitty Hawk command module pilot Stuart Roosa were all experienced test pilots, while Shepard was one of the original Mercury Seven team of US astronauts. They overcame the numerous problems on the flight to the Moon and landed safely on February 5, 1971. “Boy, what a ride,” said Shepard.

The actual club was put together from a collapsible tool used to gather rock samples with a six iron club head made for him by a local professional in Houston, Texas.

Shepard agreed they would only go for the shots if all other experiments and Moon rock collections were completed successfully, which they were.

WHAT HAPPENED?

SWINGING one-handed, the first shot was a shank, the second not much better, but off the Moon’s dusty surface they looked good. Fellow astronaut Mitchell then used another tool as a javelin and it too soared away.

As Shepard himself admitted, the balls would have begun to disintegrate within a few hours of being hit. The lack of atmosphere exposed them to the unremitting glare of the Sun, and it is likely that they have long ago crumbled into dust.

Imaging specialist Andy Saunders has recently completed a detailed study of the golf shots and concluded that the first travelled 24 yards and the second some 40 yards.

Saunders said: “I would challenge any club golfer to go to their local course and try to hit a six-iron, one-handed, with a one-quarter swing out of an unraked bunker.

“Then imagine being fully suited, helmeted and wearing thick gloves.

“The fact that Shepard even made contact and got the ball airborne is extremely impressive.”

WHAT WERE SHEPARD’S SCOTTISH CONNECTIONS?

SHEPARD became an avid fan of Scotland and our golf courses in particular. He was paired with the Daily Express journalist Andrew Fyall at a pro-am at Gleneagles and the two became firm friends. I worked for Fyall and can confirm they spoke often and played most of Scotland’s best courses together.

I also met Shepard on a couple of occasions and had the pleasure of arranging for him to play a few shots on Bruntsfield Links in the centre of Edinburgh – the original home of the world’s fourth-oldest golf club.

Fyall describes in his memoirs First In Last Out how Shepard would regale his Scottish friends and acquaintances with his humorous tales of his career including the answer to the question: “Were you ever scared?” To which he would reply: “Yes – high up on that gigantic Roman candle of a rocket, all ready to go when I said to myself: ‘The guy who built this thing did so because he made the lowest bid!’”

Shepard was suffering from leukaemia during his last trip to play Muirfield in 1997, and he died the following year at the age of 74. He will be remembered forever as the man who played golf on the Moon.