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As the Palmer anecdote implies, although golf can be a bond between fathers and sons, it can also be a rickety bridge that needs shoring up. Or a bridge that is, perhaps, so worn that it can't or shouldn't be crossed.
Poet and memoirist Donald Hall, who published a well-remembered collection of sports pieces entitled Fathers Playing Catch With Sons , has never offered so much as a couplet that rhymed pater with putter. "Baseball brought my father and I together, golf pushed us apart," said Hall when I reached him at home in New Hampshire several years ago. "To my father, golf mattered because of what it represented. He was a caddy, then he belonged to the country club. Upward mobility! It was too important to him. Whereas we could play catch and talk about baseball, or go to the Brooklyn Dodgers and talk, I was always nervous that, in golf, I wouldn't be good enough for him."
Many have gone through that. Guy Boros once shot 80 in a college match and felt he had embarrassed his father. "That's ridiculous," thundered Julius, who could really thunder. "Feel bad for yourself if you have to, but not for me." Sometimes easier said than done.
So, you see, there's a lot going on there, with fathers and sons and golf. A lot of working out being done, a lot of working out to do. Golf helps, often. And sometimes it doesn't.
Something to think about this weekend? Maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe just let the guys have their 18. Let them share a soda at the 19th. Let them come home a little late, and let them be sleepy-headed on the way to work and school on Monday. Let Dad have the day (and let his son have part of it). Let him play. Or let him watch Oakmont on the tube. Or let him curl up with a good golf book. (And if you need a recommendation . . . )
Granting dispensation: This, too, is Living Your Life by the Rules of the Game.
Robert Sullivan's new book, You're Still Away, has been published in the nick of time by the Maple Street Press.
