My father the golfer

My father loved golf. Bob Van Sickle was just a recreational player, like most of us, but he carried a golfer's special enthusiasm -- optimism, really -- for the game.

At 82, he still talked about golf. For the last six months, he'd been bugging me to find him a certain swing-training device he'd seen on television, the one where your right hand slides down the shaft on the backswing, then slides back up as you swing forward. It's supposed to simulate a good swing ... or something. He was sure, absolutely sure, this gimmick was just what he needed.

Never mind that he hadn't actually played golf in almost three years. Or that he had a bad back, a bad knee and balance problems that caused him to walk ever-so-slowly, usually pushing a three-wheeled cart (a walker with wheels, basically) if he had to cover any appreciable distance. Never mind that the last time he was on a golf course, I drove him around in a cart so he could watch my son -- his grandson -- and me play Heather Hills, a back-and-forth, par-60 course near the assisted-living center where he lived in Bradenton, Fla.; every little bump (and there were plenty of them, no matter how slowly I inched the cart along) bounced his bad back and made him groan and, occasionally, curse. Never mind that, realistically, he was never going to play golf again. Physically, he couldn't. Maybe he knew that. Maybe he just wanted to dream, like like people who buy a ticket for a $37 million Lotto drawing. (He did that, too, and devised plans for splitting his winnings among his kids and grandkids.)

But I had my orders: If I ran across one of those training devices, he told me a half-dozen times (always thinking it was the first he'd ever made mention of it), buy it for him. "I'll pay you back," he promised. I never found one, possibly because I never looked very hard. He needed a swing-trainer like an Afghan needs a catcher's mitt.

My dad was a decent golfer in his day, considering he played only on weekends. He broke 80 as often as not and was a fairly long hitter back in the '60s, when a 250-yard drive was considered a manly blast with persimmon woods and liquid-core wound balls. When he played in the big annual Calcutta event at our home course -- then Findlay (Ohio) Country Club -- he'd tee off last in his group because if he went first, he discovered, his three teammates would try to keep up with his big drive, overswing and hit bad shots.

He was self-taught. He had a unique, handsy takeaway, cocking his wrists way on the inside just as he began to take the club back. It was a baseball player's swing in many regards, which made sense because that was his best sport. He was a pitcher, a southpaw who threw hard heat and had a nasty curve that became even nastier as he got older and retold stories. He really was quite a pitcher, though, because he was named as the left-handed pitcher on the all-time University of Wisconsin baseball team chosen by a Madison newspaper columnist in the '70s. (My dad never quite forgave his alma mater for dropping baseball as a varsity sport in the wake of Title IX restrictions.) He turned down an offer from the Chicago Cubs to give professional baseball a try. There was no money in the game then, no guarantee of success, not much prestige and, besides, World War II was under way and the nation needed chemical engineers like him. He had a long career with Dow Chemical, then a second one with plastics-maker Presto Products. No doubt, he chose wisely.

I was lucky enough to play a lot of golf with him in the last few decades. When I was home from college in the summers, he'd take Thursday afternoons off from work to treat me to lunch and golf at Waupaca (Wis.) Country Club, a wonderful, small-town, nine-hole track. The course had two sets of tees -- one for the first nine, one for the second -- to add a little variety to our 18-hole rounds. Thursdays were special. I made a hole-in-one at the seventh hole there in 1988, a relatively easy par-3 that was his nemesis. A big tree blocked the right portion of the green and his tee shots had a penchant for playing pinball in its branches. He wasn't unhappy when the tree died and had to be cut down. Then some amateur architect at the club, deciding the 130-yard hole was too easy without that tree, turned the left greenside bunker into a tiny water hazard ... which my dad hit into with regularity.

Anyway, he was excited about the ace, my second one at the time, but he jokingly grumbled, "I've played golf for 40 years and never had a hole-in-one. How come you've got two?" It's a function of how often you play, I explained. He and my mom surprised me with a hole-in-one plaque a few weeks later. And in the following years, they had plaques made up after each of my aces (I guiltily admit to seven). I know I should've seen them coming, but the plaques always pleasantly caught me by surprise.

It was at Waupaca CC where my dad fell in love with his favorite club -- a ball retriever. A scenic, shallow river meandered through the course, which also had several small, man-made ponds. When you hit a ball into the water at Waupaca, you could often see it but you couldn't reach it. My dad went through a variety of ball retrievers and finally settled on one telescoping model that must've had a reach of 20 feet. It was awesome and ridiculous at the same time. No matter that he had three dozen new Titleists still in the box at home; he wielded that retriever like a surgeon, figuring in variables such as the river's current and the optic refraction of water as he battled to recover his or someone else's Top Flite downstream lodged next to a rock. In his last few years playing in Florida, when he struggled to hit a drive 150 yards, he often became more interested in ballhawking than in finishing the hole he was playing.

When he passed away Sunday, three weeks after he suffered a heart attack and a serious stroke that left his right side paralyzed and him unable to speak, his belongings included two golf bags full of clubs. One was his, one belonged to my mother, Ethel, who died 18 months earlier. (She was a good golfer, too, despite a four-piece backswing, a Nancy Lopez -like pause, and the fact that I don't think I ever saw her hit a ball on a practice range.) There was no ball retriever in either bag, which seemed curious. My sister found two retrievers strategically placed in his apartment closet -- you know, within easy reach, like a fire extinguisher, in case of emergency.

I visited my dad two weeks before he was stricken, driving over from the annual PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando to spend a few days with him. He liked to watch me hit golf balls -- hell, he liked to do anything that got him outside. I took him to a nearby golf range adjacent to the Pittsburgh Pirates' spring training complex. He sat in a chair just behind the tee line and watched. After I hit half the bucket, I asked if wanted to try a couple since he'd mentioned earlier that his back was feeling a little bitter. He carefully hobbled over. I handed him a 7-iron and teed up a ball. After several tentative practice swings, he gave it a try. He topped the first shot into the sandy soil in front of the tee. On his second try, he hit the ball flush. At least, as flush as an 82 year old with a bad back and shaky balance can hit one. As it flew semi-majestically out toward the 100-yard marker, I watched him, not the ball. He smiled a golfer's smile one last time, a treasured look that I'll keep with me forever.

He hit four or five more balls, all with miserable results. After he nearly lost his balance and fell over on the last swing, he dropped the 7-iron on the mat and said, "The hell with this," with the firmness of a man who had accomplished his mission.

I had a flight home that afternoon, so we enjoyed an early lunch at a local golf course grill room. Then I took him to Mixen's Fruit Farms, our favorite Bradenton spot. In addition to the best grapefruit, oranges and fresh-squeezed orange juice I've ever had, Mixen's sells a tart, orange-flavored, soft-serve ice cream. I bought two cones and we sat outside on a bench under a tree on a warm, spring-like day and ate them, savoring every lick.

Then I dropped him off at his assisted-living residence and we said goodbye. It was to be the last time I saw him conscious. He thanked me for coming, then choked up a little. His voice cracked but he added, "I enjoyed every minute of it."

I'd say the same thing, Dad, about the life you've given me.

Mailbag

Thanks for indulging a little family history. Let's get to your letters ...

I have never disagreed with one of your columns as much as I did last week's. First, Paul Azinger talks a good game but showed at the World Match Play when he could not put away his last two opponents that he does not "have what it takes to win the big bucks" (his quote on the Golf Channel). Second, although match play is the most exciting form of golf, something must be wrong with the event's format when it consistently fails to deliver the best players in the world deep into the event. If I wanted to see the drama of a player hitting from behind a tree, I would watch the EMC Golf Skills Challenge. Third, match play is best over 36 holes, not 18. Fourth, your comment about the event being made for TV holds no water; the entire tour is made for TV! Last, Scott McCarron a top-five player in the world? Who is his caddie kidding? McCarron could not hold a lead against a 150-something ranked player and lost to a guy who hit 12 fewer fairways over 36 holes. C'mon! Just because a player finishes high on tour two weeks in a row does not make him a world-beater.
—Victor Canseco, Greenwich, Conn.

So, Victor, if the entire tour is made for TV, then I'm right about the World Match Play. I'm glad we agree. We'll see about Azinger. Obviously, and as I've written previously, match play is a poor way to determine a winner. However, it is often exciting. You also missed the caddie's disclaimer about McCarron. "When he's on his game, he's a top-five player in the world." A lot of guys could say that, when they're on their game. But I don't disagree about McCarron. He keeps telling me he's going to win that big tournament in April one of these years -- I know, you'll believe it when you believe it.

I enjoy match play. Trust me. I know, I know, tell me I'm not a purist (and if I'm not a true golf fan, why did I watch the entire Tucson tournament on the Golf Channel? Now that's sick), but are you telling me you'd rather watch Steve Stricker-Pierre Fulke, Scott McCarron-Kevin Sutherland than the big dogs? Be honest. More fun to watch Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus or Bert Yancey and Art Wall? So far, this tournament has been cursed. Sooner or later we'll get some high seeds into the semis. The fact is, Tiger Woods is better than Peter O'Malley, and if they played a hundred matches Tiger would win a lot more than half of the time. P.S. Recipes in your golf article? Yikes.
—Casey Harverstick, Austin, Texas

Match play is fun to watch, period. The golf was exciting, Stick, even if the personalities involved weren't. I guess, if you're going by marquee value, last year's U.S. Open was no good, either, since it pitted Retief Goosen against Mark Brooks and not Nicklaus vs. Watson. If the NCAA basketball final is Gonzaga vs. Pittsburgh rather than Duke vs. Kansas, it can't possibly be interesting, using your reasoning. Yancey and Wall? I like it. You are a real golf fan if you remember them.

Hey, Van Sickle, I really thought you understood golf. That comment about the difference between a 36-hole final and an 18-hole final is way off-base. All match play events worth anything are settled with 36-hole finals. It's not about the TV. It's about GOLF. You can't tell me Kevin Sutherland didn't deserve to win this thing -- which he wouldn't have if they had played only 18. That's why they play 36, because endurance and stamina and grit are part of golf, regardless of what the TV prima donnas like Phil Mickelson and David Duval and Tiger Woods make it seem. We got a deserving champion. To heck with ABC Sports and the couple of pennies it may have lost.
—David Stamper, New York

Sure, 36-hole matches are better tests, but whom are we kidding? This isn't some traditional, pure event. I agree, it should be about golf, not TV, but it isn't. This is reality, Stamp Man. The world has a short attention span and it's getting shorter all the time. Uh, what was the question?

You're right about the claw being the next big thing. After reading Mark Calcavecchia's column on it last fall, I gave it a try. He's right: You can't twist the putter head. And putts hold their line well. It takes practice, though, because you lose some feel, so getting the distance right can be tricky. You should give it a try, Gary!
—Darwin Nichols, Memphis, Tenn.

Thanks for your theory, Darwin. Yeah, I could really use a whole new way to miss putts. What the hell.

As badly as John Daly has behaved in the past, Europeans do not heckle him the way Colin Montgomerie is heckled here. If more U.S. tour players would react to the heckling that is dished out to Monty the way Payne Stewart did at the 1999 Ryder Cup, don't you think that this unfortunate behavior by fans would stop? Also, why do tournaments tolerate this? I've seen fans ejected from tournaments for this sort of behavior before.
—Errol Spence, Pembroke Pines, Fla.

It's not going to stop, Errol. We'll never run out of rude idiots in this country. And tournaments don't tolerate that kind of behavior. If the speakers are identified, they usually are escorted out ... but it's too late by then, of course.

Here is a suggestion to make the World Match Play better: have the losers in every round play the next day. Currently, the losers of the first round are listed in the final results as tied for 33rd place (all 32 of them). If they played matches the following day, you would have the 16 winners tied for 33rd place and the losers tied for 49th. This gets everyone at least two rounds of golf; it doubles the number of matches we get to watch; and I'm sure some of the matchups that develop (especially after the third or fourth round) would be great. Some would say the players may not want to stick around, but if you look at the money that gets awarded, it would be worthwhile (about $25,000-$50,000 at each level). Chump change for the top-10 guys but worthwhile for one round of golf for most others.
—Eric Chibnik, Chicago

With a choice between going home for the week or trying to finish 33rd instead of 49th (and make less money than they'd get for a Monday outing), 12 out of 10 tour players will pick the airport.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Gary Van Sickle writes for the magazine's Golf Plus section and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. Click here to send him a question or comment.

 

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