The Waterbury Democrat., 1936-03-18
To-day,s Sports
 Parade
By HENRY McLEMoRE

--(UP)-1f hadn't known the man, and his record, would have sworn he was a phoney, sitting there in the Silver Dollar grill, drinking a beer and rolling big names off his tongue between each swallow.
 One minute he'd tell you of the devil of time he had teaching John D. Rockefeller a decent putting grip, and the next he'd recall @ joke that old Andrew Carnegie had told him as they searched in the rough for one of the steel kings drives. And in between he'd mention Mark Hanna, Walter Teagle and others.
 But he wasn't @ phoney. He was Joe Mitchell, and his stories were as genuine as the Scotch burr that gave charm to his voice. It will soon be forty years since he left Edin- burgh for this side. And he's taught golf every day since he landed. Thirty-six of those years were spent at the Cleveland Country club. And 1t was there that he taught John D., then an energetic 60, and Andy Car negie, how to play the game.
 Never Played Golf
 MT. Rockefeller never would have taken up golf" Joe said, If he hadn't wanted to surprise his wife. She had been taking lessons from me for year, but he called up and decided to try the game. He never was good player, but he never was & ba done. if you get what I mean. You could always count on him for somewhere between 50 and 60 for nine holes. don't believe MT. Rockefeller ever did learn to care as much for golf as he did for quoits. That was the game he loved, and he could really throw those things up to the stake"
 Mitchell was the first golf profess sional to teach in Germany. A few years before coming to the United States, and when he was just a youngster in his early twenties, he accepted an offer from the Royal Berlin Golf club, the only course in Germany at that time.
 T had nothing but misery there" he said. And all on account of the soldiers. About once week @ reg iment or more of them would sud- denly descend on the course and use 1t for practice ground. They'd use the bunkerS for trenches, and the fairways for practicing charges on their horses. They'd run right over the green, thousands of them.
 Soldiers. Always Right
 "It got so bad that the members many of whom were Americans and Englishmen, asked the American and English ambassadors to speak to the kaiser. They did, and I re- memberd his answer when they re- quested the soldiers be kept of the course. He simply said:
 "In Germany the soldiers are al- ways right"
 But he did tell the ambassadors that he would be glad to have a course laid out on his private grounds at Potsdam. So went out and laid out an 18-hole course. It was pleasure, too. For you never saw such turf in your life. It was so fine, that the fairways were bet ter than any green in this country today. But that didn't last long. The royal gardeners, who had tended the turf for years, and loved each blade of grass as though 1t were a baby. became absolutely mortified when they saw some of the dub players dig those big divots dubs always dig. So, after about week of play on the royal grounds. came a message that the kaiser would not countenance his turf being de- stroyed. So We had to move back with the soldiers"
 Copyright. 1886. by United Press)