CLUBLINK Magazine WINTER 2007
IT HAPPENED MORE THAN 20 years ago but occasionally in the early morning stillness, when he’s alone on the Station Creek range launching balls into the mist, Hashem Mehdizadeh still can hear the roar, feel the blows and the adrenaline pumping through his fists and legs.
In 1985, in front of 10,000 screaming Spanish fans, Mehdizadeh captured the European Kick-Boxing Championship.
“It was an amazing experience,” Mehdizadeh says. “When I started karate as a little boy I never dreamt that it would lead to any kind of title.”
However, Mehdizadeh, who is now an Assistant Professional at Station Creek just north of Toronto, is used to exceeding expectations. He first took up karate at the age of 10.
“I was a little chubby as a kid and got picked on by bullies, beaten up. I saw one of my friends defend himself with karate and decided, ‘Okay, that’s for me.’”
He quickly rose through the ranks, earning a black belt and eventually teaching karate at university while studying kinesiology.
In 1982, he continued his studies in Spain. After winning the European crown, a severe injury to his kidneys led to his retirement from kick-boxing. Looking for new opportunities, he moved to Canada.
Since the mid-1980s, Mehdizadeh has won two more world championships in Karate and become one of the country’s leading coaches. Golf wasn’t even on his radar until late 1998.
“Some of my karate students played and kept after me to give it a try. I resisted and told them, ‘No way, it’s boring, it takes 10 minutes for anything to happen,’” Mehdizadeh says.
After fighting his way to the top in kick-boxing and karate, Hashem Mehdizadeh took up golf after retirement from martial arts competition and has excelled both as a player and as a ClubLink professional.
While golf and karate appear to be the ultimate odd couple in the sporting world, Mehdizadeh took up the game in his late 30s and quickly discovered the similarities. “For both sports, you have to be very focused and pay attention to the little details,” he says.
He also realized that he could transfer the power, speed and co-ordination of this karate technique into his golf swing. Determined to become a professional, the karate master started as a play co-ordinator at Rolling Hills and with encouragement from Jamie Al-Jbouri, Director of Golf at Station Creek Golf Club, later moved into the goldf shop and the apprenticeship program.
About a year from now, after passing his exams, Mehdizadeh will earn his full CPGA Class-A accreditation. His goal is to become a full-time golf instructor.
“Hashem is the most focused individual I’ve ever met in the golf business,” Al-Jbouri says. “To take up the game at a late age and dive in full steam is amazing. Every year he is excelling and improving.”
Mehdizadeh says the combination of golf and karate is the perfect twosome. “Most people are happy if they find one job that they love. But I have two passions. I’m a lucky guy.”
Ian Cruickshank is a freelance writer in Toronto and a frequent contributor to NewsLink 2007.