Beverly Klass turned pro at age 10, but she says she missed out on too many things in her childhood.
By KEITH NIEBUHR
Published June 29, 2003
Beverly Klass was on the way to a golf tournament when her father, Jack, turned to her and said, "Beverly, the family is falling apart. You've got to keep it together."
She was 14.
"I looked at him and drew a blank," Klass said. "I didn't know how to respond."
Now 46 and a golf instructor in Lake Worth, Klass was a prodigy in the 1960s. She got her first set of clubs at 31/2, and after a successful junior career turned professional (her father made her) in 1967 when she was 10. A California native, she played in four events that year, including the U.S. Open.
But her life lacked balance.
And everything the family did revolved around golf.
"I have pictures of my mother and sisters sitting on the grass at a driving range watching me practice and waiting there so they could go to the beach," Klass said. "And then we'd get to the beach, and I'd be hitting sand shots into the ocean with plastic balls."
During her four professional events in 1967, Klass made the cut in three and had a best finish of 44th. Off the course she felt out of place. Some players were kind, but many weren't.
Klass recalled she and her father were in a hotel during a tournament when they spotted several players putting in the hallway. Klass went to join them, but the group scattered like flies.
"They were like, "Here comes Beverly, let's run,' " Klass said. "I was practically crying." Klass' appearance on tour prompted the LPGA to make the minimum age to become a member 18. She returned to the junior circuit but rejoined the tour in 1976 and played 13 seasons. She never had the success she hoped for but produced two second-place finishes. One of the tour's longest hitters, she earned $234,330 total, $51,572 in her best season in 1984.
Klass has mixed emotions about her childhood and especially her father, a building contractor and part-time Hollywood scout.
"He did some good things and he did some bad things," Klass said. "But our family pretty much lived in misery. He would brag about me to all of his friends when I did well, which made me feel good. But he'd never tell me how pretty I looked. Everything was always based on my performance. When I'd hit one bad shot, he'd be cussing me from the sidelines."
Once, Klass said, her father cornered her in a bathroom and beat her with a belt, causing her to bleed. "It got so brutal," Klass said. "He took it out on everyone."
Klass said she never had a chance to be a child. She had one friend and lacked the social skills most take for granted.
"When I was 18 some of the players took me to a mall and dressed me," said Klass, who wants to write an autobiography. "I didn't know how to shop for myself. I was so sheltered. When I left the tour at 31 I didn't even know how to cook a turkey."
Klass' father died in 1981. The two never completely mended their relationship.
"For a while I just didn't want to talk to him or see him," she said.
Klass has followed the career of 13-year-old phenom Michelle Wie and likes what she sees. But she hopes Wie can do some of the things she never could.
"There are going to be some sort of sacrifices you have to make," Klass said. "But I would say, let her go out with friends, go to the movies, the beach, church, whatever. Just try to be a kid and do what a kid does. You've got to have the balance, otherwise you become unbalanced."
