of golf and life, part II

All this talk about golf has reminded me of a true story.

My father taught me how to play golf. He wasn't the best of golf teachers, to be honest. My golf game was pretty pathetic for a number of years until I actually took some lessons. But he taught me the game and was a patient companion when my shots went astray and I had to go off looking for them in the woods.

He loved to golf, my father. You could see it in his face. His father (my grandfather) was a pretty good golfer as well, I believe. We used to hear all about the time he hit a hole in one when we were growing up. My grandfather taught my father the game, and my father taught it to me.

Later in life, my father developed Pick's disease, a progressive dementia somewhat similar to Alzheimer's. As the disease progressed, we began to involve my father less in things. He struggled with issues of continence for one thing, and he grew increasingly less able to communicate with us about what he wanted.

But the last summer of his life, we took him with us to the golf course. He rode around in the golf cart with my three brothers and I -- and on the 8th or 9th hole, he became agitated. He got up out of the cart and started walking around.

I wish I could tell you that I (what with my finely honed clinical skills and all) picked up on what he wanted. But it was actually my younger brother with Asperger's Disorder that realized -- my father was asking to play golf with us.

So we gave him a ball, a tee, and a club. And he stood up there and hit the ball. The first shot was unimpressive. But the second shot flew far and straight, and as I cheered his effort I heard a certain, familiar grunt of satisfaction from him.

It was the first recognizable effort at communication I had heard from him in some time. It was also probably the last, now that I think about it.

Golf has this way of being a game about family, about fathers and sons, mothers and daughters -- in ways that other sports don't quite seem to match. Perhaps that's because golf can be played late into our adulthood, allowing us to continue that experience together as we grow older. Perhaps its because the relative slow pace of the game allows for communication and reflection amidst the course of the round.

Perhaps for me its because the slow and quiet nature of the game fit so well with the gentle and quiet nature of my father.

I like to think that somewhere in heaven my father is playing a round of golf with my grandfather, that they're laughing and joking with each other and thinking fondly of us. I miss my Dad. The game of golf, in its own small way, gives me a chance to feel connected to him again. Whether it's recalling the way he'd say "dag nabbit!" when he hit a bad shot, or his quiet satisfaction when he hit a good one. Or the patient way he'd listen and give advice when I was struggling.

Golf was his gift to me. I look forward to the day when I can give it to my sons.