June 21, 2022

My first memory of my father is on a golf course. We were living in Prairie Village, Kansas. Our house was modest, and our street was full of young children for me to play with especially a cute girl across the street, named, no kidding, Bambi. (She challenged me to kiss her one day, but that’s another story!)

One day my father took me out on a golf course, just the two of us. I had never been on a course, but I was fascinated by the grass on the greens. I had never seen grass so pure, so green, so finely cut and low to the ground.

I supposed it was my curiosity that prompted me, as I was holding the pin while my father putted, to press the pin into the green to see what kind of marks it would make. I was delighted at the neat little impressed circles I could make.

The look of horror on my father’s face when he turned around was one I would never, thankfully, see again. He grabbed the pin from me and hastily put it back in the cup. Then he looked all around us, a full 360 degrees, grabbed my hand and started off at a half-run, me being pulled along as he went.

I still have his Walter Hagen putter.