#Eddie Merrins, Bel-Air Golf Pro Who Taught the Game to Hollywood, Dies at 91

Eddie Merrins, the gentlemanly golf pro at the Bel-Air Country Club who taught the game to the likes of Bing Crosby, Ringo Starr, George C. Scott, Dean Martin, Celine Dion and Jack Nicholson, has died. He was 91.

Merrins died Wednesday after a long illness, according to UCLA, where he coached for 14 years. His son Michael had launched a GoFundMe campaign this year to help the family with expenses.

Nicknamed “The Little Pro,” the 5-foot-7 Mississippi native played on the PGA Tour before serving as Bel-Air’s head pro from 1962 until he was asked to step aside in 2003. However, he remained a beloved fixture at the fabled club as pro emeritus in a jacket/sweater, tie and white driving cap.

Remarkably, Bel Air, which opened in 1925, has had only three head pros: Joe Novak, Merrins and now Dave Podas.

Inducted into the PGA Hall of Fame in 2009, Merrins arranged for Jack Nicklaus to meet Tiger Woods, then 15, for the first time; coached UCLA to the 1988 men’s NCAA championship; and wrote a seminal instruction book, Swing the Handle, Not the Clubhead, first published in 1973.

Merrins’ students over the years also included Robert Wagner, Glenn Frey, Jerry West, Dennis Quaid, James Woods, Jimmy Connors, Craig T. Nelson, Marcus Allen, Jerry Rice, Robert Goulet and Pete Sampras.

“As golfers, actors and entertainers are an interesting lot. They’re never satisfied with their games, and after a round, they’re inclined to talk about all the shots they left out on the course,” he told Golf Digest in 2010.

“Fred Astaire was almost manic in his quest for more distance. Sean Connery constantly checks his positions in the mirror, which I never thought was helpful — I call it a ‘vanity check.’ Jack Nicholson gives the impression that he doesn’t care how he plays, but he does. Hugh Grant became immersed in the concept of the swing being three-dimensional. Celine Dion wanted a full discourse on my ‘Swing the Handle’ philosophy — and she wanted it in 10 minutes. Mikhail Baryshnikov fought mightily to improve his grip. Entertainers are perfectionists by nature. They have to be, I suppose.”

The older of two kids, Martin Edward Merrins was born on Aug. 4, 1932, in Meridian, Mississippi. His father, Edward, was a New Yorker who came south to work as a lumber broker. His mother, Carrie, wanted her son to take piano and dance lessons, which he “avoided like the plague,” he wrote in his 2006 book, Playing a Round With The Little Pro: A Life in the Game.

Merrins took up golf when he was 11 when a polio scare caused him to miss summer camp. He played almost every day at Northwood Country Club, where, in 1949, he had two holes-in-one in the same round. As a teenager, he also defeated Sam Snead.

Merrins won back-to-back high school championships while representing Meridian High School and earned a scholarship to play at LSU, where he finished runner-up for the 1952 NCAA individual title and took Southeastern Conference crowns in ’53 and ’54. He then served as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War.

He turned pro in 1957, got his nickname from fellow player Jerry Pittman and played in about 200 PGA Tour events, plus five U.S. Opens, six PGA Championships and two British Opens. He never finished better than fourth, however.

Like most Tour members back then, Merrins needed a job as a club pro to play the bills. During his 1957-59 stint as an apprentice at Merion Golf Club Philadelphia, he concluded that a good golf swing is similar to a two-handed stroke in tennis and should be controlled by the forearms. Thus, his “swing the handle” philosophy was born.

After teaching at Westchester Country Club in Rye, New York, and Thunderbird Country Club in Palm Springs — he worked at the latter for legendary club pro Claude Harmon, father of present-day guru instructor Butch Harmon — Merrins landed his first head professional job at Rockaway Hunting Club (replacing Dave Marr) on Long Island in 1960.

He quit playing the PGA Tour full-time to join Bel-Air.

While working for the club, Merrins also coached future pros Corey Pavin, Steve Pate and Duffy Waldorf at UCLA from 1975-89. Standout players like Rickie Fowler, Amy Alcott, Ben Crenshaw, Raymond Floyd, Vijay Singh, Bob May, Tom Kite, Rocco Mediate, Gay Brewer and Scott McCarron also sought him out over the years.

Famed Los Angeles Times sportswriter Jim Murray once described him as “5-feet-7 (in spikes), weighing 150 (after lunch).”

In the late ’70s, Merrins co-founded the annual Friends of Golf tournament at Bel-Air that began as a fundraiser for the UCLA golf team but has now raised millions of dollars for high school teams and junior golf programs.

The iconic Swinging Bridge at Bel-Air that gets golfers across a ravine on the way to the No. 10 green was dedicated to him in 2015.

Survivors include his wife, Lisa; sons Michael and Mason; and daughter Randy.

“It has been a great joy and a great honor to teach so many people this game and to help them learn to love it,” Merrins told Alan Shipnuck in 2019. “Students often say thank you at the end of a lesson, but I’m really the one who is grateful because all of those golfers — with their curiosity and enthusiasm and their love of the game — have enriched my life so deeply.”