Penn State Frater Claims Guinness World Record

If Frater Joe Galiardi, Penn State '57 (Pi Chapter), is keeping his own score, it's now up to 415 and counting -- one for each autographed golf ball he's accumulated over the past 26 years. Galiardi, now living in Cupertino, California, received the following email from the Guinness World Records last April:

Hello Joe Galiardi,

We are thrilled to inform you that your application for largest collection of autographed golf balls has been successful and you are now the Guinness World Record Title Holder!

Congratulations!

Records Management Team
Guinness World Records

Galiardi says he's been a collector his whole life. As a child growing up in the small town of Connellsville, Pennsylvania, a city 57 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, he started building and collecting World War II model airplanes in 1943 and went on stockpiling marbles, stamps, comic books and baseball cards. A fierce competitor even then, Galiardi outdid his fellow card-collecting friends by getting his baseball cards signed at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.

When Galiardi took up golf in 1989, it didn't take him long before his collector's instinct led him into a new hobby: collecting autographed golf balls. Being from Western Pennsylvania, the former Penn State tennis player wanted Arnold Palmer's autograph to be his first. He found out that Palmer, the golf legend from Latrobe, who popularized the sport in the 1960s, would be playing in the inaugural Senior Transamerica Championship at Silverado Country Club in Napa, CA. Galiardi drove to Napa on a day when Palmer would be practicing in hopes of getting his first autographed golf ball by the most popular golfer of all time.

Palmer signed the ball graciously, says Galiardi, and his collection was started.

To date, Galiardi has 415 autographed and authenticated golf balls as well as many other priceless golf memorabilia on display in his golf room at home -- all of which are hand-signed. Galiardi's autographed golf ball collection includes golf legends besides Palmer -- Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus and Ben Hogan, professional athletes including Willie Mays, Joe Montana, Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps and Evander Holyfield, such celebrities as Bob Hope, Jack Lemmon and Clint Eastwood, and the last eight U.S. presidents starting with Richard Nixon.

In 2009, Galiardi wrote his hobby memoir titled, Hooked on Autographs. Beginning with how he became an autograph seeker, in seventeen chapters, Galiardi describes many of his favorite stories in garnering and gathering autographed golf balls from a colorful parade of best-loved golfers, famous entertainers, notable sports stars, and U.S. presidents. With a wonderful engaging and colloquial driven prose, golf lovers will revel and non-golfers will delight in reading this 143-page unusual memoir.

Twenty-six years in, Galiardi's life-changing moment has come full circle. Inspired by that first autograph from one hero, Galiardi is now doing his small part to help change for the better the lives of other heroes. He donates a portion of his book's proceeds to the Walter Reed Society to help America's wounded soldiers who are returning home from war. Galiardi's sister, Rose Marie Mologne, is one of the founders of the Walter Reed Society, located in Bethesda, MD.

Hooked on Autographs is available at Amazon.com for $13.95. For a personalized copy of Hooked on Autographs, contact Frater Galiardi at joejudy1983@att.net.

For more information, please contact:

Daniel Klopfenstein
Communications Specialist
317.872.6533
DKlopfenstein@tke.org