A great wind is blowing off the sea, a source of courage or pain for golfers. I’m reporting from the battlefield of links golf in a howling, moaning gale on the southwest coast of Ireland at the 16th World Invitational Father-Daughter Tournament. My daughter Sam and I are not accustomed to playing every day, and this is rattle-bottom golf—every shot chased down, every gimme putted out—and we’re loving it. My old friend Sandy Tatum once said, “Put me vertical and give me the feel of seaside turf through my spikes and I could go on forever.” As the days and weeks now pass, I want to keep that feeling alive.
“Too much of a good thing can be wonderful,” said Mae West. I always preferred the sport psychology of Mark Twain: “Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whiskey is barely enough.” You could say the same about playing golf with your kids—it never gets old, even when you do.
This year was our first time in the tournament inspired by Jimmy Layden and Marty Carr of Ireland’s famous Carr Family. Joe B. Carr was the greatest amateur in Irish golf history. His offspring now operate a travel company, Carr Golf, and its daughter- and son-themed tournaments evoke the warm affection only a golfing dad can feel after 18 holes, a swim in the freezing Irish Sea and a pint of Guinness at midnight in the little pub they call “The Shebeen.”
I admit that I have the stooped posture and delicate hands of a shoe salesman. Pretty reliably I aim it right and hit a soft pull hook into the middle. I learned in these pages a long time ago, “Working the ball means finishing with the same one you start with.”
Not so for Sam, who pummels her drives, as Bernard Darwin once described Nicklaus, “like a kicking horse.” Opposites attract; we make a great team. I had the passion but not the talent. Sam had the talent but not the passion. Should I have pushed golf more when she was younger?
We played our first round with Roddy Carr, Marty’s older brother who used to manage Seve Ballesteros. Roddy advocated equal measures of opportunity and neglect: “When Seve’s son Javier was about 10, I noticed he was hitting balls cross-handed. I said, ‘Seve, you’ve got to correct his grip.’ Seve said, ‘No, Roddy. Some day his friends will tell him he looks stupid hitting it that way, and he will figure it out for himself and be better for it.’ ”
Sam has figured it out on her own. From the “up” tees that our daughters play, Sam’s ball can finish 100 yards past me on firm and fast fairways. In the alternate-shot competition, we used her drive on Waterville’s long par-5 fifth hole, then I bunted my 5-wood between the grassy dunes. With 130 yards left, Sam lofted an 8-iron that rolled straight into the cup. Dads know how to cry, and my eyes got a little misty seeing her make a net double-eagle.
It was the second time this week I wept. The first was when the tournament field took a morning swim in Ballinskelligs Bay with a water temperature of 57 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s a Carr tradition; they swim every morning of every month no matter where they travel. Between us, Sam’s the aquatic athlete; I’m more of a tea bag than a swimmer. You know the sea is cold if the air feels warm when you get out, but we’re loving every minute of this marathon.
Sam and I follow two practice rounds with three straight tournament days. It’s the most consecutive golf she has ever played, but she can’t get enough. “We’re coming back next year and bringing [my sister] Lauren,” Sam said. “Too much golf, when it’s with your dad, is just about right.”
Marty showed me an email he got from a friend of a friend who took an 11-day golf trip. Ted and Fred Heldring had organized their own father-son event as they’ve done every year for the past 12 summers. They often go to Bandon Dunes and play 72 holes in a day, not a typo. This July they went to Scotland for the first time and played from dawn till dark: 36 holes the first three days, then 54 holes for five consecutive days, then 36 twice, and 54 on their last day. Ted, 62, and Fred, 32, walked 28 rounds in 11 days, carrying their own bags every round, except for two when they took a caddie. Fred sorted out the tee times and drove their rental car. They played Gullane (1, 2 and 3), North Berwick, Elie (five times), the Old Course, the New (four times), Castle, Jubilee (twice), Lundin Links, Leven, Crail, Panmure, Carnoustie, Cruden Bay, Dornoch (twice), Nairn, Golspie and Brora. Marty said, “In 35 years in the golf travel business I’ve never seen such an aggressive itinerary.”
Who are these guys? Ted spent most of his career at JP Morgan before retiring to teach finance and commercial banking at DePaul University in Chicago. Fred is a financial consultant for Ernst & Young living in Philadelphia. They seem like normal guys. They could be you.
I called them from Ireland to ask what their secret was? Ted said they changed their socks and shoes after every round. That’s a lot of socks, I thought. It had to be something more. Their highlight, they said, was playing the Old Course at 6:40 a.m. on a Saturday with two Royal and Ancient Golf Club members, who invited them into the storied Big Room for a couple of Bloody Marys. They said, “It was a magical experience.”
The magic, I learned from my rounds with Sam, is not about how much you play or even where you play. It is all about who you play with.
Fathers playing links golf with sons or daughters get a glimpse of their mortality while still feeling they can go on forever, and because you know you can’t, my advice is to do it now.