Out of this world: Shepard put golf on moon 50 years ago

Fifty years later, it remains the most impressive bunker shot in the history of golf, mainly because of the location. Left behind were two golf balls that Shepard, who later described the moon’s surface as “one big sand trap,” hit with a makeshift 6-iron to become a footnote in history. “I thought it was unique for the game of golf that Shepard thought so much about the game that he would take a golf club to the moon and hit a shot.” Shepard became the first American in space in 1961 as one of NASA’s seven original Mercury astronauts. In a 1998 interview with NASA, Shepard said he ran his idea by the director of the Manned Spaceflight Center who told him, “Absolutely no way.” Shepard told him club and two golf balls wouldn’t cost the taxpayers anything. “Within the Hardens, the legacy is he gave him golf balls from the range that had ‘Property of Jack Harden’ on them,” Chamblee said.