While approaching a less than perfect drive on the eighth, Spence said: "I play very well during the summer. I really want to hit it pure this year. God's punishing me."
Perfectionist
Fitzgibbons, as you may gather, is a perfectionist. He seldom actually plays, preferring instead the thankless hours spent on the practice range. When he returns to the confines of Canaday, he spends more time practicing sliding his hips through the swing by banging them against the door of his room. "It's rough on the hips," he says.
Spence was an early bloomer, first wielding a niblick at the tender age of eight. He shot a 113 for his first 18 holes. He made a 74 at age 14, the same year he played in his first Pennsylvania State Amateur, then his home state.
At 17, he broke 70 for the first time with a 67 at the Hanover Country Club in Pennsylvania. That year he became the youngest winner ever of the Junior Championships of York County in Pennsylvania.
There are few mortals past or present as knowledgeable about the golf swing as Fitzgibbons. "I've put so much time into trying to find a perfect swing," he says. "I've tried to isolate every single move--to break the golf swing into 400 parts and make each perfect." Nor has he arrived at the end of his search for the flawless swing. In fact, despite taking some lessons from the renowned teaching pro Claude Harmon, he feels his swing has lost some of its youthful fluidity.
'Lateral Hip Slide'
He believes there are two fundamental components to the sound golf swing. The first is the "lateral hip slide," which results in "a nicely grooved swing plane." The second crucial ingredient is "bowing," which refers to the locked position of the wrists at impact. He says, "bowing was Hogan's great secret. He called it supination. Nicklaus does it well, so do Trevino and Irwin. Harmon's a great proponent of bowing."
Second Fiddle
Fitzgibbons brings to the Crimson linksters a certain sense of pride in Harvard's tradition. His father was a baseball standout for the Crimson in the '40s, who made it to the big leagues as a catcher for the Red Sox, but spent most of his career playing Class AAA ball. Spence came to Harvard, despite knowing that he would have to play second fiddle to number one golfer Alex Vik.
"Who wants to be number one at a rude school?" Spence explains.