He remembers a man sitting behind them with a jug of moonshine, yelling vulgarities at Reggie Jackson, and he remembers his father admonishing him to keep his eyes on the ball, a lesson that he has internalized with near-fanaticism.
But the problem is, before those exciting players can do any attacking, they have to have the ball – a lesson Florentino Pérez, for instance, seems never quite to learn.
Katie May: My life has been an incredible journey thus far with a lot of curve balls and lessons along the way.
He said the plan for this week was getting in as many practice balls between lessons and duties in the golf shop.
Leonie Nice was catching the ball during a lesson at Woodlands comprehensive school in Basildon, Essex, when she was hit in the chest and fell over before appearing to have a fit.
New balls please: a lesson underway at Forte Village.
From tea with Caroline Wozniacki to chatting with Maria Sharapova, a crash course in being a ball girl to lessons from Martina Navratilova, it has been a busy period for the former Wimbledon junior champion.
That's a powerful message to embody, for something that just missed the wrecking ball, and a valuable lesson in the simple art of paying attention.
Andy White, headteacher at Woodlands, said: "Leonie Nice, a year seven pupil, was catching a rugby ball in a PE lesson when she was hit in the chest by the ball.
"In the second half we got a lesson in ball retention - even though we had the wind, we barely had any possession or territory.
One night he walked into a ditch, later he crashed his bicycle, and then he started to miss the ball during his tennis lessons.
