"The Drive By Golfer"

Dear Reader:

Most of my childhood unfolded next door, at my grandparents’ house. Afternoons meant sitting at their dining room table, eating ramen, scraping butter from a Country Crock tub onto saltine crackers, and listening to my grandmother, Helen, tell stories about a life that existed long before mine. Her stories felt endless—full of places, people, and moments I could barely imagine—but I hung on every word.

In the other room, like clockwork from Thursday through Sunday, my grandfather sat in his brown cloth recliner watching golf. This was the early rise of Tiger Woods, when every broadcast felt electric, and eventually I found myself on the couch beside him, drawn in by the same quiet intensity.

He was a complicated man, and I was a complicated, emotional kid—two personalities that didn’t always mix well. But golf gave us common ground. It was the one thing we could share without friction, especially since no one else in my family cared much for the game. I’d sit there most of the afternoon watching coverage with him, until the transition to Law & Order and Bill O’Reilly signaled it was time for me to head home, the Law & Order theme song playing me out like a nightly ritual.

One summer, he gave me a pitching wedge and a bucket of maybe fifty old golf balls—greasy, dirt-covered, and perfect. To me and my brother, they were endless entertainment. I’d stand in the yard and skull ball after ball into the woods, then go find them and start again. It was the only club I had, so I made it work, turning our yard into a makeshift par-3 aimed across the road.

That setup lasted until I shattered my parents’ front window with what was, ironically, the best shot I’d ever hit—a sweeping 50-yard hook. The result was immediate: shouting, cursing, and a firm instruction to start aiming in a different direction.

For years after that, through spring, summer, and fall, I’d be out in the yard pitching toward a flag while my grandfather drove past on his way to play at his club, Down River. He had lived a far deeper golf life than I understood at the time. In the early 1950s, he worked as a traveling salesman for Dunlop Sporting Goods’ golf division and crossed paths with some of the game’s biggest names. There was even a rumor—one I still can’t confirm—that Arnold Palmer once walked off with a demo putter of his from a tournament practice green.

Arnie Circa 1962

By the 1960s, he had moved into course design and operations around Tupelo and Memphis. He even flew his own plane between job sites. Back at home, his trophies—club championships and others—sat lined up on the windowsill beside the TV we watched together.

Despite all of that, I don’t remember him ever asking me to join him for a round. Maybe he knew better. I doubt my game—or my temperament—would have lasted two holes with him. Still, I always wanted to go.

Every so often, he’d take me out to hit balls in a neighbor’s sod field. It stretched for what felt like miles—a perfect green carpet rolling through a wooded valley. He’d try to teach me, but I never quite knew how to translate his words into action. He’d lose patience, the lesson would end, and a quiet distance would settle back in until the next attempt.

Looking back, I was erratic—bouncing from one interest to another, searching for something that felt like mine.

It wasn’t until high school, when I joined the golf team, that I started to take the game seriously. Even then, it competed with music—jazz band, marching band—which eventually took priority. My golf career, if you could call it that, peaked as the last man on the roster: there in case someone got sick, or to ride a cart and “check in” on the top players. My only real claim to fame was a full-page photo in my sister’s senior yearbook—probably intended as mild humiliation, but it somehow turned into people asking for my autograph. I obliged, of course.

Before long, life took over. I became a working student, focused on staying afloat and building a life with my future wife, Leah. Golf faded into something occasional—a couple rounds a year with friends, never enough to improve, and never once with my grandfather.

Then, before I realized it, he was gone.

I never got to sit with him and really understand his life in golf. Never got to see him play more than a handful of times. Never got to ask the questions that feel obvious now. That absence has stayed with me—it’s one of my biggest regrets.

And yet, somehow, he still shows up.

There have been moments on golf courses—strange, unexpected encounters with strangers—that seem tied to him in ways I can’t quite explain. One of them happened on the first tee at St. Andrews. That’s a story for another time.

For now, this is where it begins.

This blog will be a collection of those moments—stories from courses near and far, some you’ve heard of, some you haven’t, all connected in ways I’m still figuring out.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading. There’s more to come.