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Freeland said Mullinax was asked to come to Philadelphia to help get the Professional Golf Association’s First Tee program started. “I bet there were 400 kids up there. They loved Tommy to death.”
Freeland shakes his head. “I’d love to be as good as him on remembering names and faces. He was the best I’ve ever seen at that. We’d go out west to Las Vegas. It might be three or four years in between visits. But he’d know the guy (who asked him to put on a show) and his family and how many kids they had. And he’d remember the one daughter who had a little illness. He’d always inquire about her.”
Even more than the trick shots. Like hitting a golf ball off the face of a watch. Or playing Tic-Tac-Toe by hitting irons through the board. Or bouncing a ball of the face of a pitching wedge, ala Tiger Woods’ famous commercial.
“Tommy did it using a 3-iron,” Mo said. “He was also a tremendous basketball player. Just a great all-round athlete.”
If Mullinax had a fault, Freeland says, it was in not being able to say no.
“He was a little too good for his own good,” Freeland said. “People from New York to Florida to Las Vegas would fly him in, pay his plane tickets and his stay, and then pay him on top of that. He went just about every time somebody called him.”
The popular and beloved Mullinax was welcome everywhere.
“I got to meet so many different people because of him,” Freeland said. “Race car drivers like Bobby Allison. The Governor. Tommy Lasorda. I got to shake Arnold Palmer’s hand because of Tommy.”
Along with Mullinax’s generosity, however, sometimes came his penchant for pranks.
“One year, he got about 14 of us tickets to the Clemson-North Carolina (basketball) game. We all went down there and sat down in our seats. It was about twenty minutes before the game started. Here comes this big dude in a black suit. He looked like he was Secret Service or a cop. He said, ‘I need to check all these tickets. We’ve had a lot of bogus tickets. We’re going to have to find out if yours are any good.’ He had us all stand up and pass our tickets down to him. And then I heard somebody behind us snickering. That Tommy had us going for a few minutes. He loved to pull tricks on people.”
Mullinax was a crowd pleaser at the racetracks at Darlington and Charlotte. “He wanted to get inside the infield at the race track, but that never did pan out because he got sick.”Freeland was on a sofa inside the original block clubhouse at Greer, watching golf, when Mullinax came down from the Cliffs of Glassy where he was club pro.
“One of the guys came off the porch out under the walnut tree and said, ‘Doug, there’s something wrong with Tommy. He’s talking crazy. You can’t understand him. We got him inside onto the couch. It was like he was having a stroke.”
Mo, who was the pro at Persimmon Hill in Saluda, South Carolina at the time, remembers the phone call he received.
“I was in Columbia for a wedding,” he said. “When they told me at Greer that one of my family was in the hospital, I assumed it was my dad. But it was Tommy.”
His older brother had a brain tumor.
“When the swelling went down, they did the operation,” Mo said. “I felt good about it. The doctor said he got everything out except for a little piece the size of your little fingernail. He didn’t feel he could take out that because he was afraid it would affect Tommy’s speech. But it was one of those (cancer’s) you just can’t kill.”
Mo pauses. “I idolized him. I’m not just saying it because he was my brother. He was a great guy who’d give you the shirt off his back. He was my hero.” Freeland looks down at the photo. At the ultra-talented, fun-loving, fan-pleasing Mullinax as he wields his powerfully classic golf swing into the annihilation of a large fruit.
“If he could have just played like he did when he was out here (at Greer) with us, hitting all those shots, he could have been a pro that the fans would’ve loved to watch play. The way he cuts up with them. Always having a good time.”
And Mullinax had so many good times at the little golf course with the porch under the walnut tree.
Inscribed by Mullinax, the photo reads: “To the Greer Country Club. This will always be the course I call home. Best down-to-earth club all around.”
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