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The publisher of a new golf collection I've got out called "You're Still Away" was cracking the whip in recent weeks with printers and shippers. "It's a golf book," went the reasoning. "It's got to be out for Father's Day."
It did get out in time, and I had a signing scheduled at a local independent bookstore last Saturday. When I arrived at the Second Story Bookshop I noticed the event was heralded on the chalkboard outside with these words: "Perfect for Father's Day." The typical customer that day was a boy or young man buying a copy "for Dad."
Now, I'll tell you: I published a book about the Red Sox a couple of years ago, and no one told me-not once-that it might make a perfect Father's Day gift, or that it couldn't be sold to Mom, who'd also been a lifelong Bosox nutcase, just like Dad. And surely moms and daughters play golf too; it's not just fathers and sons.
But there is something about golf and the male half of the family that is perceived-at least perceived-as special. I'm not saying this is right, I'm just saying it is. To many men, the words "Father's Day" mean golf, they literally translate as golf.
This is, of course, the week and weekend to think about such things: Fathers, sons, golf and what that whole equation is about. This Sunday is the day when Dad has absolute dispensation to play 36 full, no questions to be asked, no lawns to be mowed. The second 18 is often played with Junior, Junior being the prodigious son, the one who's already walloping the ball 240 yards and will soon be outdriving his old buck, making the old buck far more proud than he is chagrined.
Fathers and sons and golf: It's a deal that's been going down for ages, a tradition of legacy as ancient as the sport itself. Old Tom Morris bequeathed his game to Young Tom Morris, and Young Tom had a younger brother, J.O.F. Morris, who tore up St. Andrews in turn. In Ireland the great Christy O'Connor passed the game down to the pretty good Christy O'Connor. In Japan, though the years, you couldn't swing a pitching wedge without hitting a champion named Ozaki. And have you been watching the yearly father-son challenge lately? How 'bout them Singhs? How 'bout them Langers?
In America, today, there are the famous traditional examples-Jack and Jackie and Gary-and also not-so-famous ones. Arnold Palmer, as we'll see, had a father who taught him the game.
At the top level or U.S. golf these days, the father-son relationship comes at you from all directions, up, down and sideways (sideways being Jay Haas, nephew of Bob Goalby, and J.C. Snead, nephew of Sam). There are the Floyds, Raymond and his two boys, Robert and Ray Jr. In different years Raymond has played the challenge with either of them, the brother caddying. Larry and Drew Nelson are a formidable team, as are Tom and David Kite, Hale and Steve Irwin, Bob and Kevin Tway, David and Dru Love and two large Tour players, Craig and Kevin Stadler.
Tiger Woods was famously mentored by father Earl. Coaching-wise, Jim Furyk is still with dad. Once, when I was at the Tour whistle-stop at Doral in Miami, Furyk, he of a swing that only a father could love, shot a 77 on Thursday. His dad, Mike, caught some of the action on cable. Unable to sleep that night, Jim called Mike at home, which for both is Lancaster, Pa. The two men talked on the horn for an hour, going over what physically and psychically ailed the boy. On Friday, in a gale, Furyk posted the best round of his life, 62, tying the course record. Hanging around outside the press room afterwards, I asked him about the phone call. "Dad told me I wasn't making the right turn," he said casually. Mike Furyk knows his boy from afar. Mike knows Jim as if he lived in his skin.
A few years ago, the Stocktons, Dave and Dave Jr., nearly pulled a family double one Sunday on the old and young Tours-the kid came in second at the PGA stop even as dad was wrapping up a win on the Senior circuit. In 1999 the Duvals actually turned the trick: Bob winning his competition in Florida and then, only an hour or so later, David posting the biggest win of his life at the TPC. He was asked who might be prouder at that moment and David answered, "I think that's a contest I'd win."
Thanks, kid.
