I believe the first time [I met Bobby] was…I used to work at the Los Angeles Tennis Club, a great old club, a bit of a mecca. In it’s time it produced more good players than anywhere else. It’s a unique institution. Gonzalez, all those guys played there, grew up there…Bobby also. I worked for George Toley. He was the USC coach and the head pro at the LA Tennis Club, and I was a student at Pasadena College, which is about 25 miles away. That was about 1972, ’73, right around in there. And I just worked in the shop on the weekends, stringing racquets, selling balls for George. And because I worked there, I could come down there during the week and play, even though I wasn’t a member.

Invariably, I bumped into Bobby one time, not knowing who he was. I was just 21, playing anybody I could play in those days. He was stumbling around and I asked him to hit some balls. And we’re playing, and I say to myself, "God, this old guy plays good." I didn’t have any idea who he was. I couldn’t even tell if he was trying or not.

Something came up, because we ended up not playing very long. And he says, "You and I’d have a good match. We’ll have to do it again sometime." Yeah, okay sure, I said, and I didn’t realize it was him until I heard people talking about him around the club. I think he had been banned for a while, because they didn’t want him coming around playing for money. They talked about him like he was a bad boy, but they said it with a twinkle in their eye because they enjoyed talking about him. But they couldn’t control him. He would like to come around and get into money matches and play cards with those guys in the card room. They’d go all night long… Every time he came in there would be some sort of action. He’d create something. Just walkin’ around, he’d get guys who want to play him at golf or tennis, get into doubles matches, things like that.

Bobby had all these patsies… guys who existed to lose. But what else are you gonna do? It was more fun complaining about losing to him than not to play with him at all.

He loved to assess…it was very interesting to watch him watch a football game or a basketball game. He loved to try and assess the situation. He was a great assessor of the field of competition. He loved to size up the situation. He was probably the best person I ever saw at doing that, predicting the outcome. Not that he had the golden touch. He would bet football and lose as much as the next guy.

[For example,] I was head pro at the Dunes at Las Vegas, and Bobby and I shared an apartment. Bobby was director of tennis and running the shop and would come in once a month a stay for a bit. One night, we were sitting there and he got a call from [Jimmy] Connors. It was about an hour before the U.S. Open final, and Connors was asking for his advice. How should I play Borg? …That’s somewhat of a compliment; Connors isn’t going to call too many people about what they think… And he was essentially saying, Borg has a bad thumb, what should I do? What manner should I change my approach to the match? All I know is that Bobby had bet on Borg, because during that period Borg owned Connors. There was a period there where Borg beat Connors 15 times. [Bobby] told him to jump on him, don’t let [Borg] think he has a chance. Break his will. Then Bobby went down and changed his bet [and Connors won].

He loved to play golf, and he loved to play golf for money. He wasn’t a real good golfer. On the golf course, when other guys would roll over and die, Bobby would hold on. He was going to hold on to his handicap when other guys would choke like hell. That is, when something’s on it, [because] Bobby was definitely a guy who played better when it was more important. The bigger the occasion, the harder he would try, even in little matches at the hotels and so forth. If there wasn’t anything on it, he couldn’t bother, but if there was something on it, like $5,000, then you could see what he could do. He may not win, but you’d see him at his best. His powers of concentration were extremely impressive. That really made an impression on me: His ability to concentrate under pressure. It was amazing, and fascinated me. That’s a huge intangible in sports…confidence and the ability to cope under pressure.

Bobby explained to me that in the early rounds he didn’t want to extend himself. He didn’t think he could lose the match, and he had this theory of his that he didn’t want try as hard as he could every match because he’d burn himself out. So he’d coast in early rounds, and then he’d try when he really had to against a good player. This is why he felt he was under-recognized historically. Don Budge would beat guys in the first round love- and-love. He’d overpower guys. But Bobby, he’d win 7-5, 6-4 against some guy who couldn’t play. But [then] he’d get to the finals and win.

Thrift went through to his soul. I don’t know where it started from, maybe it was the poverty of his youth, but it consumed his entire being. It was the way he played tennis. It permeated everything he did. You do not give anything, you do not waste anything. You don’t waste a shot. You don’t waste a point. You don’t waste energy. It was just fascinating. If he couldn’t finish a steak. "Doug, finish my steak." Don’t leave any food on the table. No waste. He was consistent to the point of ridiculousness. It owned him a little bit. If he had a choice whether he would sleep on your floor for free or across the street where rooms were $30 a night, there’s no question. He’s sleeping on the floor. He would drive 30 miles to get a free meal, and spend more on gas than what the meal costs. But that meal’s free, so it had that attraction.

I was fascinated by some of his idiosyncrasies. He had one he’d do at lunch. If I saw him do it once I saw it 50 times. I knew it was coming. I saw it coming. He would take a glass of iced tea and there’d be a glass of water. They’d start out full. He would make one glass of iced tea stretch into two, so he would start pouring a bit of the iced to into the water and back and forth and then half of both glasses would end up on the table. So it would end up with two half-glasses of iced tea, but in his mind he stretched one glass into two, just in case that waitress is gonna charge him for the second glass. It was completely irrational.

But he could be generous, too. He would get up at 10 o’clock and pick me up at the airport. Another time he co-signed for me on my condo in Las Vegas because I didn’t have enough money. He did me that favor.

He’d give you the keys to his car.
He had a heart.

He didn’t have that many people who he was close with, really. He was pretty much a loner. Lornie was a good friend, and sometimes I would sort of play that role when Lornie wasn’t around. I’d do whatever he needed, be kind of his slave, in a way. "Let’s go to dinner." "Let’s play some golf." Whatever. I was sort of his Good Man Friday when he was in town. Bobby, I don’t think he ever lived alone for a second. As much as he didn’t have too many close friends, he hated to be alone, so he’d surround himself with these guys… go-fers.

Bobby was not an ass-kisser. He was a very strong-willed guy. He pretty much did what he wanted to do when he wanted to do it… He had his own weird sense of right and wrong, and felt that there wasn’t a thing wrong with it… He had his own sense of morality. He sort of made it up as he went along.

He had a tremendous capacity for dealing with people. He could say no and make you feel good better than most people could saying yes. If somebody would make a request for this and that he would say no in a very gracious manner. He knew how to make someone feel very good. He would compliment them. On that level, he understood human nature in terms of treating someone with respect. I guess you could say he was sensitive. [But] he was a guy who could be as insensitive as anybody I’ve ever seen. He’d walk into a hotel and cause a stir, but he was Mr. Magoo. He would disrupt the whole room and would be completely oblivious to it. He had no idea that 90 people were staring at him. He had no idea, not a clue.

One time at Caesar’s Palace, we were having a drink. One beer turned into four beers, and he guzzled them. He downed that thing in one fell swoop. God almighty. I never saw anybody do that. Then he got loud. This guy didn’t show up. He was supposed to have dinner, but he didn’t show up. So Bobby has another beer. A half-hour, forty-five minutes. Where is this sonavabitch? So he gets on the casino phone, right in the middle of the casino at Caesar’s Palace. Now he gets the guy on the phone and he reams that guy at the top of his voice. "YOU’VE GOT SOME BALLS MAKING ME SIT AND WAIT…LOSE MY NUMBER AND I’LL TELL YOU WHAT…" And the whole casino, Caesar’s Palace casino stops. Every dealer, every…the whole place…it went dead quiet in there. Bobby had no clue.

In terms of building a career, he would make all the wrong decisions. He do things that would put him in the minor leagues in terms of prestige. When it came to a paycheck, there wasn’t much he wouldn’t do. He’d ride an elephant in his underwear, whatever. He’d ride a motorcycle up to the Snake River. I mean, that was just crazy. He ran against that guy [Bill Emmerton] across Death Valley.
He was colorful and interesting and fun. He was a fun guy. He was a great storyteller. He could spin a good yarn, whether it was tennis or not. He liked to talk about books he’d read. He loved to read and he loved to talk about them. He could be a little overpowering, and after couple days with him you were a little wrung out because he took over your life.

Right towards the end I was visiting him at the hospital down in San Diego. It was a real tense situation. They had wheel him into the operating room. And only the family was there. There was some question whether he could come out of the operation alive. It was that serious. There was a real serious tone. And I’d been there watching the UCLA basketball game with him and then—it was family only—I didn’t want to go on the elevator with him when they were taking him down. Everybody was afraid to talk. Then all of a sudden Bobby—he may be a half-hour from dying—and he wanted to tell me what was going to happen in the second half. "Hey Doug, here’s the deal. UCLA defense is just way too strong. They’re going to overpower them. Even though they’re way down. They’re gonna win the second half." He had it figured out. He may be dead, but this is what he’d rather talk about.