Golf and life with Dad

Keeping in mind that this blog is all about you Valeria, my Angel, I want to share with you a part of your grandfather that I have probably never told you about in such depth. I wrote this in 1994 and I have to say, at second glance, I may have taken some liberties for dramatic effect, but be assured the spirit of the man portrayed is accurate and the significance of the game of golf in my relationship with him is as depicted here.

This may have something to do with why you call every sport I watch on television "golf". I hope I have not denied you any due attention to honor this game and my real prayer is to share it with you, if you so desire. You are four now and I hope you will soon walk the fairways of life with me and breathe in the sweet air of summer as we stride together toward the green heaven your grandfather now inhabits.
(He really did caddy for Bob Hope, by the way!)


KEEP YOUR EYE...

In the early evening, on a bus from Newark to Wilmington, Delaware, in the middle of a string of meditative associations, I find myself thinking of golf and of my old man. My senses transcend the rocking bus and I am standing under a tree back in Waterloo, Iowa at Gates Park Municipal Course on a Saturday afternoon near the tee of a 430 yard par four, the smells of birch and pond water, the splashing sounds of frogs playing on the weeded bank.

I love to watch him. He's not as graceful as the tour pros on television, but he has a class that doesn't require nice polo shirts or PING clubs. There is a depth in his stroke and in his eyes as he follows the propelled ball to its landing, his hand held on his forehead as a visor. I watch him watch. Over the years he has given me a lot of advice: most of it "goes in one ear and out the other", as he would say. But I hear him clearly in that still-framed moment under the Iowa sun, his attention seemingly focused on a small rubber band-wound, plastic covered sphere: "Keep your eye on the ball. Follow through," he says, without saying anything at all.

I see my father's life in his stroke. In my mind's eye, I tailor a black and white photo of him when he was twelve. I put him on that same golf course at that same hole where he caddied as a child. He caddied for Bob Hope once. I see him caddying for the legendary comedian, holding a bag almost as tall as him, pinpointing Bob's ball for him "just in the shadow of the third pine tree." After the round, Hope gives him five bucks and dad goes home bragging to his brothers and, under the intent gaze of his father, dutifully places the five in a jar marked with his name. All eight of his brothers caddied. He was in the middle of fifteen children. They each learned to pull their own weight and to take pride in a good day's work.

One day I would caddy for him. I started out just walking, tagging along. It was nice just to be with him. He enjoyed my company and it was obvious; teaching wasn't important yet. He just walked and talked and wrote on his little score card and I followed him and watched him hit that shafted hammer into that ball that seemed to go forever. He bought me hot dogs and Pepsi in the pro shop and dropped me a five every once in awhile when I got strong enough to carry his bag.

He played with friends, but I didn't care who he played with; I just wanted to be with him, my dad, my buddy. Sometimes we rode in a cart. I got to sit in the cart, all alone behind the steering wheel while the men stood at the tee and waited for the group in front. Dad never got a cart if he had any say in it though. It wasn't his style. It still isn't. He's a walker. He spies lost balls in the deep rough, under trees, by the roadside and even fishes one out of the shallow pond with a 9 iron on occasion. His feet track the earth as he strides through the high grass of the rough, crossing from one side to the other, lending an eye to the less attentive.

Then I started to play. He never demanded that any of us kids take up the sport; it was our choice. How could I not play golf? ...so many memories, so much a part of me, of him, of our whole family. I took lessons when I was twelve and I played three days a week, as specified by the green ticket I paid five dollars for each year. Growing up I played with other kids. I always had the worst score in our foursome. I used a baseball grip on my club, must to the chagrin of my teacher and even more so to my father. It took years to break me of that habit and I have several others I have never learned my way out of (not that dad hasn't tried his damnedest to help.)

One summer, I hooked up with a friend who's brother managed the University course. It was quite a deal. If my friend or his brother were working, I was allowed to just walk on. I got off work at three-o-clock and went straight to the course every day. I breathed golf and once in awhile I'd even have a good game. I'd get home and call dad about a part I needed for my car or ask him how his back was and slowly work into telling him that I had birdied number three that day by sinking a chip from the edge of the green.

Years went by and I fell into a permanent golfing slump. In spite of a valiant coaching effort on dad's part, I pulled up in his driveway one July afternoon and threw my clubs on his sidewalk, "You can have 'em! I don't ever want to see these stupid clubs again. I'm just not cut out to play golf!" I left him with those words. I had given it to him straight; put him in his place. "What nerve! How dare he try to teach me something that brings him such joy!"

The next summer, my clubs were there waiting for me- no questions asked, no rubbing it in. My game hadn't improved much but my attitude had changed. The time off put the game into perspective. I didn't start playing golf because I wanted to win or even to score well. I played because, walking up the long fairway or standing in waiting on the green, I could feel the presence of my father. Through adolescence and into adulthood, when I was unwilling or unable to ask for his attention, I found him at my side, even when I was golfing alone, carrying the weight of ten golf bags. I took hundreds of quiet walks up and down the hills and around the green, manicured curves of our city golf courses and pondered what it meant to be alive: sweating in the humid Iowa sunshine, hurrying ahead of the black ominous clouds and floating balls into the turbulent winds. I've never played a round of golf without thinking of my dad.

It's January here in Delaware. I'm a thousand miles from home and the rain has finally washed away the six-foot snow drifts that have made it hard to see the street from my window. I'm working sporadically at three different jobs, one that I would compare to playing an entire nine holes in the bunker. I'm working so I can go back to school, even though I don't know what I'll do with my degree when I get it. It's hard to concentrate when I'm so unsure, but dad is helpful without even knowing it: "Keep your eye on the ball, Tim; follow through." And finally I hear his supportive, gentle, reassuring voice, "Good ball, Tim. Nice shot. That'll do. That'll do."