Arkansas' first family of golf: from the first tee to the PGA Tour, the Ralston name is everywhere.

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No less an authority than the golf guru's guru, the rate Harvey Penick out of Texas remarked a few years back on a televised show about a "little pro up there in Arkansas who strikes the ball as well as anyone." He referenced Bob Ralston, who at the time was the golf professional at Belvedere Country Club, where Ralston went to work in the early 1980s after three seasons on the PGA Tour.

Nine years ago, Dan Snider, then at Chenal Country Club, said Ralston "was the most consistent solid ball striker I've ever seen." Ralston at that time was preparing for a run on the PGA's senior tour, now called the Champions Tour.

The swing, Ralston says, was self-taught. Until he pursued the Senior Tour, Ralston says, he rarely hit practice balls. The swing was improved on through the years with long discussions with trusted friends such as Snider.

It must be awe-inspiring to any golfer to turn around and see Gary Player observing your swing. "I gut to know Mr. Player well on the [Champions] Tour," he said. "He just one day showed up and started watching me swing. He would go up to guys on the range, bringing them down to where I was hitting, saying, 'You've got to see this guy.' To have someone of Mr. Player's caliber think that highly of your swing is very special."

Ralston, in casual conversation, refers to the greats in golf as Mr. Player, Mr. Nicklaus, Mr. Palmer. He remembers pounding away at balls one day at a senior event, far down the range away from people, paying no attention to what was going on around him. He remembers taking dollar-size divots out of the turf with his wedge. Suddenly he noticed a golfer behind him, swinging, brushing the remains of those divots off his shirt. It was Arnold Palmer. From that apology from Ralston to Mr. Palmer, they became acquainted and played an event together later that year.

New Direction

Ralston, now 58, tore a muscle in his left arm last year and his future on the senior circuit was in doubt. While at home recuperating during the spring but still able to play the PGA Senior Championship--"I was barely able to lift my arm up," he said--Ralston got word that The First Tee of Central Arkansas was undergoing another transition in leadership. The executive director, head pro and an assistant pro were all leaving at the same time.

Connections were made between First Tee board members familiar with Ralston, gauging his interest in the head professional job.

"I gave them a figure of what I'd work for, and they got back to me and offered the job," he said.

Another Ralston was back in the golf business, the one of instruction and clubhouse operations.

The Ralston family tree touches golf courses across central Arkansas. Ralston's brothers, Steve and Joe, and Ralston's sons, Dustin and Heath, are at separate clubhouses. Then there is Glen Day--married to Ralston's daughter, Jennifer--who is on the PGA and Nationwide tours.

"This was just a great move for The First Tee, getting Bob Ralston out there," said Chris Jenkins, one of the state's top amateur golfers and a First Tee board member.

Son-in-law Day said, "Bob is arguably the best golfer I've seen in my life, and that includes Mr. Nicklaus." The address of mister as respect must run in the family. "Bob's weakness has always been the mental approach to the game." That means the way Ralston would handle the decisions, and his anger, during the most pressure-field moments.

He still won plenty. His winnings weren't enough to sustain a PGA Tour life, so he took a job with Belvedere in Hot Springs in 1984, staying with the club until it was temporarily closed with Melvyn Bell's foreclosure (it has since reopened and is enjoying life like it once was as a top-flight course under Skip Davidson's ownership).

Ralston's father worked for the government; a transfer from Guam brought his dad to Little Rock Air Force Base, and the family to North Little Rock, in the mid-1960s.

"To tell you the truth, for the first 16 years my favorite sport was baseball," Ralston said.

But the golf bug started taking hold for Ralston at age 12 when he picked up an old yellow-coated steel shaft club--apparently the whole household got the bug. Bob worked at Western Hills Country Club then spent seven years at Maumelle Country Club.

Steve Ralston was working as soon as he could at Burns Park, starting in 1968. After college, he was back; he has never left, moving up to its golf professional in 1980.

Joe Ralston took over the golf shop at the old Fort Roots course and helped bring that facility back. It was renamed Emerald Point.

Kids and Golf

Then came the Ralston kids.

"My boys liked to hang around in the shops and work where I was," Bob Ralston said. "And Jennifer ... when I was at Belvedere, when she was about 15 or 16, I'd leave her in charge of the shop. When I got back from wherever it was I'd been, I'd come to find out she'd fired everybody that worked for me. I had to go out and hire them back."

The First Tee, while created to make golf accessible nationally to kids who otherwise couldn't afford to play the game or find facilities, is open to both children and adults. Little Rock's nonprofit complex off South University Avenue, which takes $1 million or thereabouts to maintain, has what is considered by many golfers as the best public practice facility in the state, along with a nine-hole par-3 course and a nine-hole regulation course designed by Tom Clark of the famed Ault, Clark & Associates architectural firm.

Chad Kauffman is the First Tee of Central Arkansas' new executive director and leads the fundraising. Ralston and the professional staff are always seeking volunteers to help with classes for the kids.

Ralston is available for lessons with youngsters and adults alike.

"I don't know if all the kids of central Arkansas and the parents realize what we have to offer," Ralston said. "What we're trying to do is get out in the public's eye." The First Tee board is looking at ways to build relationships with area schools, community centers and churches to bring children to the facility with its outreach committee.

Ralston says his shoulder is healed, and he's pointing to a select senior tournament or two in which to enter.

"There are still some things I want to play, like a sectional event that I'll qualify for. I'll stay competitive. I still have three or four good years under me. I don't want to completely give up playing."

RALSTON MEANS GOLF

FIVE MEMBERS OF THE RALSTON family have made golf their professional life. ArkansasSports360.com asked Glen Day, Bob Ralston's son-in-Law, to evaluate the games of each Ralston.

Bob Ralston. Age 58. Pro, First Tee of Central Arkansas. Glen Day says: "Bob is arguably the best golfer I've seen in my life, and that includes Mr. Nicklaus. Bob's weakness has always been the mental side, but physically he's as good as anybody I've ever seen, ever, unequivocally."

Steve Ralston. Age 56. Pro, Burns Park Golf Course, North Little Rock. Glen Day says: "Steve physically was not as good as Bob, but on the flip side of that coin, Steve is what we'd call a grinder. He may not hit the ball great, but he thought he could chip it in for par. He felt Like he was going to make a 50-footer to win the hole and he's still that way. When we play, it's hilarious what goes on."

Joe Ralston. Age 46. Pro, Emerald Point Golf Course, Fort Roots, North Little Rock. Glen Day says: "I haven't played with Joe a Lot, but the times I've played with Joe he's always hit the ball a Long way, and hit the ball good. He had two older brothers who played golf really well. Joe took it up and is a good player. I don't know this for a fact, but I think he just didn't pursue it as hard as Steve and Bob did."

Dustin Ralston. Bob's son. Age 36. Pro, Greystone Country Club (Cypress Creek). Glen Day says: "His strength is that he's one of the best club pros in the South Central section of the PGA. He's a very good, smart businessman and he understands the business of golf. He Loves the sport and he's a really good club pro."

Heath Ralston, Bob's son, Age 33. Assistant pro, The Alotian Club, Roland. Glen Day says: "I've known him for 17 years and he was always, always an incredible putter. This kid can putt. And he putts with an 8802 Like Ben Crenshaw does. Heath's not very big. Bob isn't big but he still hit the ball a Long way. Heath had to Learn to get the ball up and down. He's got a terrific short game."

DAY PICKING HIS SPOTS

WHEN STEVE LOWERY OVERCAME Vijay Singh and other big names to win the AT&T Classic at Pebble Beach Last month, it made an impression on veteran players such as Glen Day who have to contend weekly with flat-bellied 20-somethings, not to mention the flat-bellied 32-year-old Tiger Woods, who wins every time out now.

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"What Steve did is a great inspiration for us older guys," the 42-year-old Day said during a stopover at home in Little Rock from the PGA Tour grind. "It was good to see him win. He had been struggling. Once you get to a certain age, the repetition of making a golf swing wears on your body and you get injuries."

In hindsight, Day himself wishes he had skipped a shoulder operation he had in 1999 and a quick return to the tour that he believes has hampered him of late. It didn't bother him in the seasons immediately after the injury--in fact, he finished fourth the first time back out--but he felt it Last season.

"When I started having injuries, my career starting turning the other way," Day said.

Then Last year, he had the bad luck at the end of the tour's regular season of being nosed out for a spot in the final 144 golfers who competed in the FedEx Championship series, finishing 147th.

That also kept him out of the top 125, which guarantees exemptions into the following year's events. But as a former winner on the Tour (MCI Classic, 1999), Day has status to play. He sees his schedule shaping up with perhaps 10 PGA Tour events along with eight on the Nationwide Tour, the Level just below the big boys that has future stars on the move and older golfers trying to stay sharp before embarking on the Champions Tour for seniors.

The game has changed significantly, Day said, since the Mississippi native came out of the University of Oklahoma in the mid-1980s.

"When we were coming out, we were told not to lift weights and build muscle, but these kids now are lifting weights, they're fit and strong and the money is such now that it's a huge business. When I started, it was a game. Now it's huge."

The drastic change in technology within the past 15 years has had its biggest effect on the players who were juniors at the time.

"Length is the main part of the game now, hitting it a tong way," Day said. "There's not as much shotmaking, which Arnold Palmer made famous in the early 1960s. So the game has changed and you have to change with the game."

Day readily admits the massively Long PGA Tour courses these days offer him tittle chance of winning the tournament. "But that doesn't mean I can't finish in the top 10. There are certain courses I have a better chance than others. You just have to go play, put a smile on your face, and go do what you can do."

Now he wants to be home with his two daughters. Wife Jennifer has always handled the business aspect of Day's business. They plan to have the "Day for Charity" event with several of Glen's fellow pros on Sept. 22 at The First Tee.

"She's the Rock of Gibraltar," Day says of his wife, the daughter of First Tee professional Bob Ralston. "She knows the business and knows the travel She knows that you play good sometimes and play bad sometimes."--Jim Harris