Twice in recent months I’ve landed at LAX on the way to
other places. Each time, my
husband leaned over to the window and said: “That’s where I played golf with
your father.” Not on the runway,
but at a course directly adjacent to it.
Although I don’t really play golf, it has always been part
of my life. A regular part of an
evening at Angus Street was listening to the whiz of the wiffle balls my father
would hit every night. One
hundred. Sometimes he used real
golf balls and once broke our neighbor’s window. After that he constructed a
large chicken wire barrier.
My dad sawed off a couple of old clubs and taught me how to
position my hands and I joined him now and then for the evening “shoot.” But I’m left handed and all my father’s
clubs were for a right-handed person.
I have played a few rounds of golf, but, to be honest, the best part of
the game was being able to drive the golf cart.
When we finally got a dog—I had yearned for one my entire
life up to the age of 17—my father trained her to not be afraid of the swishing
balls and swinging clubs. So even
our dog was involved in golf.
I remember my good friend Monica and I watching golf matches
on the living room TV and then practicing the “golf voice”; the almost whisper
narrative that seemed so funny to us.
This was well before Tiger Woods and his mistresses. The names were Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer,
Chi Chi Rodriquez, that Aussie upstart Greg Norman and Nancy Lopez. This was also WAY before Congresswoman
Patsy Mink (for whom, I am proud to say, I campaigned) introduced Title IX and
opened up the world of sports to girls and women. Seeing a woman play any sport was an oddity.
My dad loved to get up at the crack of dawn and play on a
golf course in Griffith Park. When
I was in high school he would often drive by me as I walked to school, honk his
horn and wave. He had already
finished his game and was heading home.
Golf led him to meet the odd celebrities. He often played with the actor Aldo
Ray. And he played with Governor
Pat Brown—Jerry’s father—on the course at Wawona Lodge in Yosemite. He got a hole in one during a golf
tournament sponsored by our church at the time and became a celeb in his on
right. At least in our house.
When I was living in Scotland, my parents and sister came
for a visit. My dad played Saint
Andrews golf course as a walk-on with rented clubs.
After my father retired, my mother felt she should take up
the game so they could play together.
Soon a second “women’s” set of clubs found their way to our garage. My mother didn’t have an athletic bone
in her body. Even in a swimming
pool she only swam sidestroke…the only stroke not represented at the Olympics.
As hard as she tried, golf just wasn’t her thing. Her playing days were quickly ended when she swung the club
hard and the ball, instead of heading towards the hole, killed a mud hen that
was resting on the green.
When I brought my soon–to-be husband home for our wedding,
he and my father instantly bonded over golf. Whenever we were visiting in Los Angeles and Manhattan
Beach, the two would get up early, often in the in the dark, and head out to a
golf course. My father even found one
that was floodlit and open 24 hours a day.
Years later, as the ravages of Alzheimer’s had stolen my
father’s wit and humor, my husband would take him to “shoot a bucket of balls”
and give my caregiver mother and few hours of respite.
The last time my five-year-old grandson visited, he and my
husband hit golf balls in the back yard.
He was pretty darned good.
Wonderful...
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