I once heard a golf-related Yogism that was straight from Yogi Berra’s mouth: “You have no idea how hard it is to swing easy,” he said.

Baseball great Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra died Sept. 22 of natural causes. He was 90.

Ten years ago, I spent time with the former New York Yankees catcher, who won a record 10 World Series titles as a player, for a profile that ran in The Met Golfer.

The gist of the story was that if playing sports gave him a happy childhood and baseball a wonderful career, then golf had been the source of his happiness in retirement.

Berra played his first round of golf in 1947 at Sunset Country Club in his native St. Louis with Henry Ruggeri, a St. Louis restaurant owner, and Cardinals Stan Musial and Joe “Ducky” Medwick.

Berra, a left-handed hitter in baseball, started playing golf left-handed but switched to righty after about 10 years. “I had a big slice,” Berra said. “One day I hit it behind a tree and I couldn’t hit it lefty, so I borrowed my partner’s right-handed club. I hit it good and decided I’m going to get a full set of these.”

via GOLFWEEK | Yankees great Yogi Berra dies, leaves golf legacy that includes love for game.