Earlham Echo

May 3, 2022

The golf: Twenty-three holes at 5×80. I have a much lower bar for weather this spring, so using that adjusted scale, conditions were pretty good. Not much wind, anyway. The golf itself was nothing to write home about—let alone put into a newspaper column—but here we are.

I think about my dad a lot when I play golf. I used an old set of his clubs for a long time, but they were old-school blades, and it was difficult to make good contact—for me anyway. I’m two sets removed from those now. I still have some of his stuff in my bag, though, including a cool repair tool from Hornung’s Golf Shop in Fond du Lac, WI. If he got it when we lived in Milwaukee, it’s over 50 years old. Plus, I have a ball that has a logo of the company he used to work for. I never use it, of course, because it would probably be in a farm field or the pond within an hour or so.

Unfortunately, we never got to play much together. He played a lot when I was a kid, but I didn’t. He tried to teach me, but I was hardly a natural, and I suppose I wasn’t patient enough to work through the ‘terrible’ beginner stage.

When my parents retired, they moved to Hot Springs Village, AR, a community that included seven golf courses at the time. There are nine now. That was golf heaven for my dad, and he took his game to another level. I asked him once how his game was and how often he was playing, and I still get a kick out of his answer—he said, “I suppose I play 200 times a year.”

I started playing a little more as an adult, but not much. My dad and I were playing one afternoon in our hometown—Mexico, MO—and it started raining a little as we played the last few holes. As we were finishing up, I thought I was being clever when I said, “I guess I’m a ‘real golfer’ now if I’m playing in the rain.” My dad, being more clever than me, quipped, “If you were a real golfer, you wouldn’t even know it was raining.” That’s still a line I mention often during rounds with my boys in inclement weather.

I was visiting my parents in Arkansas sometime in the late 80s and my dad asked me if I wanted to play. Of course I did, but was concerned it might not be much fun for him. The talent disparity was huge and I was sure he’d have to spend way too much time helping me look for my wayward shots. I was right about that, but we still had a good time, even if the golf (my golf) was below average. I even hit a house with a stray shot. It was a terrific swing and probably my best contact all day—I was just aimed in the wrong direction. (That still happens quite a bit.) The house had a Spanish tile roof and the ball sounded like a machine gun as it rattled around. The startled owner came out, and my dad was quick to head that way to apologize for me.

Off the course, my dad said a lot of things that stick with me. He grew up during the Great Depression, served as a Navy Pilot during the Korean War, worked for the same company his whole life, and ended up with a lofty position in management with that company—so he knew a thing or two about ‘making it.’ We were talking about his career once and he told me, “I was never any smarter than anyone else, I just worked harder than everybody.” I didn’t say anything at the time, but I knew the first part of that statement was BS, because he was smarter than most people, too. But I took the message to heart.

I’m already a year older than my dad was when he retired. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like hard work pays off in the same way it did in the ‘good old days.’ There are varied opinions on why that is, depending on what side of the political aisle you’re on. Whatever the answer, I’m just going to keep doing what my dad did—work hard, fix my ball marks on the green, apologize for dangerous golf shots, and play in the rain without complaining.