The Eleventh Hole

Last Saturday I played golf with my father. This is nothing unusual, as last week many sons played golf with their fathers. I don't get to do it as regularly as I'd like, because I live about four and a half hours away from Buffalo, the town from which I hail. Last Saturday, however, was one neither of us will ever forget.

Growing up, golf was always the kung-fu of the household, and my father the zen master. I can remember standing in the backyard for hours while he'd chip wiffle balls, working on his short game. In the winter, he'd be in the basement, working on how he took the club back from the ground, as far as the basement ceiling would allow. His name is legend at the old public course he used to play at. I grew up there over the summers. A Junior Pass was cheap, and I'd play all day. My dad knew everyone there, so I had more babysitters than I needed. I'd play about 18 holes a day, maybe more, but everyone knew me because of my dad, and that was just fine with me.

To this day, there are few moments when the clarity of the father son relationship shines more brightly to me than when my dad and I are standing on the first tee. The dew cuts a glare on the fairway, the whole day is ahead of us. Neither of us knows what will happen out there, but we both know we'll do our best to meet any challenges that we encounter. Sometimes we'll handle them, other times, they'll handle us. Just like in life.

At the eleventh hole, a 156 yard par 3, a sunshower offered a few drops just as my dad was teeing up his ball. Then he swung. He's got a tight efficient swing that produces consistent results. The green is elevated on the eleventh hole, and as we watched the ball hit the green, it rolled a bit and then we lost it. Henry, one of the regulars in my dad's war party said, "I think it went in." My father just picked up his tee and walked out of the tee box, shrugging his shoulders. "I don't know." He didn't, so he kept his cool. None of us knew. I paced the teebox like a caged animal, looking for a good angle to see if it did indeed drop into the cup. Nevermind that I still had to shoot...I didn't even care.

As we approached the hole, we saw two balls on the green. I knew I had landed on the green, as did Henry. My dad's ball either went off the green or in the hole. Thinking the former impossible, I rushed the green to confirm the latter. There it was, in the hole. A Titleist Pro-V1 X-Out (my dad would never pay the full bill for standard issue Pro-V1's, so he buys the seconds). I went nuts. My dad wasn't even on the green yet, and I was hootin' and hollerin' like one can only imagine John Marshall did at Sutter's Mill in California on January 14th, 1848 when the gold shined up at him in the riverbed. My dad cooly walked onto the green, smiling. I practically jumped on him like a football player would in the endzone. I'm sure I disrupted at least one tee shot within earshot of my carrying on, but not even the most crotchety golfer would ever complain about such celebration.

The rest of the round was a blur. We talked about the fact that in the morning, my mother had given my son the golf balls that were on my dad's dresser to play with. My dad told him to be careful with them, because two of them were balls that he had gotten holes-in-one with before. The others were balls he won club championships with. My son, oblivious at just over a year and a half old, played on. I'm sure it registered somewhere in his subconscious though. I thought about the fact that my father sees those balls every day when he's getting dressed. I imagined that they must provide him with a sense of confidence and self-assuredness in the early morning hours, as he prepares for the grinding day ahead. That my son literally had a hand in the event made us even happier. Three generations were in on that one shot on the eleventh hole.

Golf teaches those who play it many lessons. How to handle pressure and frustration, how to lose with dignity and how to win with humility. It teaches discipline, sportsmanship, dedication and perserverance. It teaches endurance and strategy, technique and feel. Last Saturday it also taught me that, at the eleventh hole, my father is bigger to me today than he was even as a kid. I'll never forget the shot, and all the days practicing in the yard, and those winter evenings practicing his takeback in the basement it took for it to happen. If that's not a lesson worth learning, then surely there are none worth learning at all.