A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Emotions

Did Dad purposely place this photo in his Sam Snead book, knowing I would end up with the book and experience this range of emotions the day the photo dropped into my lap?

Somewhere, buried in one of my cardboard boxes that have made several moves with me, lies a book by legendary golfer Sam Snead. The book belonged to my dad, but more on the book in a few minutes. 

Golf was a touchstone for us. It was Dad’s game, really, but he used to take me to play when I was young. And I can’t think of a better way to spend five hours with your dad on a Saturday afternoon than drinking Pepsi, eating candy bars and talking about school and girls while cruising around in a golf cart, chasing a golf ball through wide open spaces.

I don’t remember much about his game. But I do remember a pro shop allowing him to borrow a 1-iron one day and him hitting the snot out of the ball with it, so he bought it, despite Lee Trevino’s famous advice: “If you are caught on a golf course during a storm and are afraid of lightning, hold up a 1-iron. Not even God can hit a 1-iron.” It should be noted that Trevino was, in fact, struck by lightning on a golf course. 

Dad once took me and one of my friends golfing. My buddy had never golfed before. On the fourth hole at Spring Lake Golf Course, he had a bad downhill lie. He swung and missed. He tried again; same result. After maybe the fifth miss, he started laughing at himself, miffed over how difficult it was to hit a ball that wasn’t even moving – one of life’s great mysteries. Then I started laughing. Dad put a stop to my laughter, though. For him, it was a respect thing. You don’t laugh at another golfer’s woes. After all, golf is considered a gentleman’s game.

Later in Dad’s life, he opened a bar called Gentleman’s Game. It probably wasn’t his best decision, but as I look back, I can appreciate his nod to his favorite sport and its honor code.

I went on to play golf for my high school team and enjoyed it. Golf was never my game, though. Tennis was. And once Dad realized that, he bought me the racquet of my dreams. And he began to watch tennis matches on TV as a way of connecting with me.

I didn’t give up golf, though. In Dad’s final years, we frequented a course called Fontenelle Hills. It was relatively inexpensive but long enough to be a challenge. Well, for me, every course was a challenge because I can’t hit a tee-shot straight to save my life. But this course had some length to it. We made some good memories there, cheering each other on when we hit a good shot and consoling each other over bad ones. By then, Dad had given up trying to hit his 1-iron and had gone back to his driver.

The only picture I own of Dad on a golf course.

Fast forward a couple of years. Dad had passed away and I was playing at Fontenelle Hills with some buddies. As I went to grab my putter near one of the greens, I spotted Dad’s 1-iron in my bag and got emotional. One of my friends somehow intuited what was happening, despite my best effort to conceal my emotion and put his arm around me. He, too, had lost his dad, so he knew how something as simple as seeing your dad’s 1-iron in your bag could sneak up on you.

After Dad’s passing, I plucked that Sam Snead book from Dad’s shelf. I began to flip through it one day and the photo above fell out. I was maybe 12 years old at the time. If I really dig into my memory, I think I can recall him shooting it at Milt’s Driving Range one Saturday afternoon. My form wasn’t great. My bowl haircut fit right in with the 1970s. And if I had to guess, I probably swung and missed the ball multiple times that day. If I did, though, Dad didn’t laugh. He would have tried to correct my swing and told me to try again.

As I wrote this article, a possible truth nearly knocked me to the floor. Did Dad purposely place this photo in his Sam Snead book, knowing I would end up with the book and experience this range of emotions the day the photo dropped into my lap? If so, mission accomplished. Well done, Dad.