I would have much rather gotten under the table, but they made it fun.

Jeanne Kirkpatrick took up golf to be with her husband, Bernie. She became a strong amateur player, and for a few days in 1984 she was the talk of Bangkok. The Kirkpatricks live in Toluca Lake.

About the time the children both started grammar school, about 1961, I had some free time. My husband had always played golf, and we were members of the Wilshire Country Club. You come to the point that if you can’t beat them, join them. So I took it up, and I became totally addicted to it. You get established at a 36 handicap. Within two years I was down to a 21. By 1984 I was a 14, which is fairly good. I’m not a very good putter, but the driving gives you that feeling of power.

Now we’re into two-condominium living, here and at the desert. It works out wonderfully well. My husband has been retired 10 years, and we play a lot of golf and spend most of the winter at the desert. I play about three times a week.

It’s just a fascinating game. Anyone can play with anyone of any ability because of our handicapping system. It makes for wonderful friendships. Most of the people that play golf are really very special. They enjoy the outdoors. It’s not a very complicated group.

We’ve traveled on two of these People-to-People golf trips, one to Europe and the last one to the Orient. People-to-People trips were started by President Eisenhower as kind of a good-will thing. We meet people in their country, and we play golf with them. You get a chance to see the world and meet the people on a face-to-face basis.

The men all have a uniform, gray slacks and navy blue coats with the People-to-People emblem on the blazer. They look wonderful. We are very proud to be on the American team. There are 20 players on the team. The women just wear golf clothes, but then we get dressed up very pretty for the cocktail parties and the dinners.

In 1984 we went to the Orient--Tokyo first and then Taiwan, Manila, Singapore, Bangkok and Hong Kong. We played in awful weather conditions in Manila. It had just poured rain for weeks before we got there. You’d step in the mud and pull your foot out, it was like a cow pulling a foot out of the mud. We played 18 holes, and they waived the rules about lost balls because the ball would go down in the mud and you couldn’t find it. When we came in, everybody was just mud clear up to their knees.

About three weeks before our team was to arrive in Bangkok, there was an article in the local paper saying that Jeane Kirkpatrick, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was coming to play golf with the People-to-People group. All the women there were very excited. They all wanted to play with Jeane Kirkpatrick of course. Fortunately, about a week before we arrived, they found out it was not the Jeane Kirkpatrick.

But the reporter who had written the article came out on the golf course and made a point of meeting me and followed us around and took pictures and put my picture on the front page of the Bangkok sports section.

At the dinner that night the U.S. ambassador to Thailand gave a speech welcoming us. He said that he had heard that Jeane Kirkpatrick was coming to play golf so he had sent her a letter welcoming her. He said, “I got the strangest reply. It said, ‘One, I don’t know how to play golf; two, I have no plans of being in Bangkok, and three, I am representing the United States at the Gandhi funeral that week.’ ” He said, “Will the other Jeanne Kirkpatrick please stand up.” Of course I would have much rather gotten under the table, but they made it fun. Everybody got a big kick out of it.

We went from Bangkok to Hong Kong to shop. We played just one day in Hong Kong. We shopped about three. We had to buy an extra suitcase to come home.

I don’t think I’d ever get my husband traveling if it weren’t for golf. It gives you a focal point. Like when you go to Scotland, it’s a very exciting, thrilling feeling to stand on that first tee at St. Andrews and think this is where it all started.