Remembering My Father
By Steven Mattingly
For those of you who are not golf fans, I’ll begin with a bit of recent golf history. A 40 year old recently won the prestigious British Golf Open something that as of late has been left to the younger generation of golfing giants. Being of that certain age myself (50+) it was great to see the old guy make good one more time. But it also reminded me of a time when my father was the “old guy” trying to win one more time.
My father for the last 20 years of his working life was the golf course superintendent for a small golf course where I grew up in Kentucky. He often referred to himself as a high class dirt farmer. He had grown up the oldest of 11 children on a poor scrap of a farm with a father who was both mean and mean spirited towards his children. The ragtag assemblage of the family and their circumstances can at best be described as dirt poor. I think my father enjoyed a secret laugh each time he made the high class dirt farmer reference since he not only escaped the hard scrabble of being a farmer, he had done it with style.
My father was also quite the competitive and successful sportsman as a teenage and young man, playing baseball on a couple of semi-pro teams until his knees and back gave out and he couldn’t jump up quickly enough from his catcher’s position. At the ripe age of 34 he took up golf and that in turn in a very roundabout way led to his becoming a golf course superintendent. For anyone who has played golf you know the frustration of the game and also know that practice does indeed make perfect in the game. My father rarely had time to practice between a 16 hour work day in the warm weather and still being a father to four children. So it was somewhat surprising the August that I was 12 that I noticed my father was carving out 15 minutes here and 20 minutes there to hit golf balls and work on his game. He had always been a good golfer by never a great one. Being a youngster I couldn’t figure out the angle until it was the week before Labor Day weekend when I realized my father had with quiet determination set about qualifying to play in a well respected and highly competitive match play golf tournament held over the three day weekend at the golf course where he was the superintendent.
Somewhat surprising to many who knew him, he qualified to play in the championship division. My father over that three day weekend got up at 4am and got me up as well since I was his helper and mowed, raked, trimmed and otherwise manicured the golf course to the pristine order for which it had become known under his tenure. He then came home 6 hours later, cleaned up and went back to the course to play his matches. To his great credit he won matches his first and second day and made it to the elite group of four for the final day. On that final day he again was up at 4am did a day’s work, and went back out to face what he knew as did I his toughest opponent, a strapping and strong 18 year old with a slamming swing that just sent the ball soaring into space. The match was fascinating to the crowd that traditionally watch this part of the tournament and to me who served as my father’s caddy throughout the tournament.
There was never more than a difference of 1up throughout the match and it ended up even after 18 holes of play going into sudden death right at 12noon. And that’s when it happened, the responsibility of being the golf course superintendent and the desire to prove something clashed. If you know anything about Kentucky weather know that in late August it is ungodly hot and humid, two things that spelled disaster for my father’s carefully manicured greens, often referred to by many as the finest in all of Kentucky. He didn’t want to forfeit so he did what he had to do. He played the first hole of sudden death and at the end of putting pulled out the hoses (no automatic sprinkler here) and hand sprinkled the green for the time it took for his opponent to walk to the next tee, he then sprinted from the previous green to the next tee and continued the match. This continued for four holes of sudden death until my very tired father missed a very makeable four foot putt and lost the match. I thought of my father as I watch the British Open and saw the “old man” win and just cried for I knew he could have made that last putt.
Steven Mattingly is the Executive Director of Pacifica Senior Living in San Leandro, CA.
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