Fathers' Day Tribute

A good life learned through golf

By: Terry Donnelly

June 23, 2011

Last Sunday was Father’s Day. I’m late, but permit me to share some about our relationship. Like many, I profess Dad to have been a great father. He went on Boy Scout outings even though he had more than enough camping to suit his taste during World War II and also volunteered to lead our church youth group. He liked to listen to my friends. He thought they kept him current and young. They, in turn, liked him. I quipped in his eulogy four years ago that his plus column included getting girls for me. The minister gasped but was relieved when I explained that my girlfriends all thought he looked like the television/movie star Fred MacMurry. He was kind and easy going. The girls thought if I turned out anything like him, they’d chance a date.

Dad was never one to have long philosophical conversations. The obligatory chat about “growth and human development” took about five minutes–max. Neither was he one to give advice. Dad led by example. He had no guile and no false pretense. What one saw was what one got.

His other strategy was to teach me the wide world ways through the metaphor of golf. Starting at age eight we played hundreds of rounds throughout our time together. Work had him on the road, so when vacations came around, we stayed home and he and I played golf. There were his weekly games on Saturdays, but Sundays and often Friday afternoons were devoted to my game and moral development.

A six or eight handicapper, Dad was a pretty good golfer remaining a mid-eighties shooter into his eighties. When I approached his skill level during my teens we had fierce battles on the links–he never took quarters nor asked for any. The exception came during his post-prime years when he and my wife, the lovely Pat, played as a team from the forward tees with me on the tips–their best ball against my ball. The bet was a beer at round’s end. Guess who always bought.  

One afternoon when he was 76 he called reporting that he shot 35 that morning with his pals.

“Wow Dad! Great! What did you shoot on the back nine?”

“We only played nine holes.”

“What? Score 41 on the back and you’d shoot your age! Do you know how many people shoot their age?”

Duly chastised, he called about two weeks later saying he had a similar score that morning and bribed one of the guys by buying lunch to get him to play another nine. The old boy shot 76, right on the number.

Dad had rotator cuff surgery at 84 and never regained enough range of motion to play again. Shortly before surgery we went out to play. Dad stopped after nine holes and Pat and I finished the round. He had played badly and was discouraged. He was waiting when we arrived home and dragged me to the driving range to see if I could help his game.

We got a bucket of balls and he took a couple of swings with a 7-iron, our standard lesson club. He grounded them and was not pleased. I noticed that he had his chin tucked tightly to his chest. This position doesn’t allow room for the shoulder to turn freely and causes an over-the-top swing.

“Raise your head and look down your nose at the ball.”

He instantly removed his bifocals and flung them aside. “(Expletive) glasses!”

Now, without having to focus through the lenses his chin went up, his back straightened, his shoulders squared–he looked like a golfer again. The next few 7-irons flew straight and true. Then he pulled out the Big Dog driver, teed up a ball, took his stance, and skeptically glanced at me as if this club would be the alpha test. He swung and we watched the ball soar in the prettiest arc out to the 200-yard marker–his best drive in months. Smiling, he put away the driver. Dad was convinced his son was a genius. Sadly, that swing was the last golf swing I ever saw him make.