My Papa didn't start playing golf until later in life. The story, as I remember it, is that my Dad and some friends were playing when Papa arrived. He scoffed at the sport, but they convinced him to swing a club. He declared it "easy." Papa had a gift for dry humor. He may have had a bit of a natural gift for golf too, but regardless, after that day I think he was hooked. He played constantly, right up until the golf course accident that would claim his life. I wish that we'd been able to discuss it, but I don't know that it would really be necessary for him to actually tell me that he wouldn't want to go any other way. I can't say I can really even imagine any other way.
When he wasn't on the golf course, it was common to find him in his favorite armchair watching golf tournaments on television. When our hometown boy, Stewart Cink, began to slowly rise to the top of the game, Papa fiercely cheered on the young guy that played at our country club. To me it was just cool that my elementary school librarian's son was on TV, but to Papa, I think it just made him all the more proud of the sport he loved. He never stopped cheering for Cink, through all of the near misses and frustrating last minute collapses. So today...I know that my Papa is still very much alive somewhere, and while I do not presume to be certain of what he knows and sees and is able to do from there...part of me very much wonders if he's smirking happily over a certain golf course in Scotland today.
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