The bond between parent and child is unbreakable. As those bonds strengthen over time there are oftentimes particular things that make that bond grow even closer. It doesn’t matter if it is father-son, mother-daughter, mother-son, father-daughter – any combination. And when you are in that sweet spot of life, the time when you are both parent and child you have an even greater appreciation for those bonds, how they form, what makes them yours and the role they play in your life.
Sports create a bond that has always played a role in so many of these parent-child relationships. Whether that be a generational rooting for a particular team, the love of participation together, coaching or watching your child play and so many other limitless variations. Baseball has done a particularly good job of romanticizing the bond between father and son. If you want to see a male of a certain age cry like a baby just say the phrase, “Hey, Dad, you wanna have a catch?” and watch the waterworks start to flow.
Golf is another sport in which the bonds can run deep. I suspect part of the reason is because of the longevity the sport provides, being able to participate and play together even into one’s twilight years gives it incredible shelf life. After all, there are only so many sports you can play as you age, let alone play with others of any age. And golf isn’t just the playing or enjoyment of the game, it’s the time together, the conversations that can be had between shots and other factors that make it so unique. The amount of time it takes to play golf gets a bad rap for the obvious reasons but there are other times when it is the time itself, and time together, that is the most valuable part of the entire exercise.
I never really realized the thru-line golf had in the relationship between me and my father, Jim McCoy, in large part because it was never a central part of our story. It’s just now that I realize it has always been there, even if unspoken to a large degree. My Dad played scholastically in the 1950’s in his hometown of Middletown, N.Y. and in my early years he had his weekend tee times with a good group of friends at Finley Golf Course in Chapel Hill, N.C. where I was born and raised. I’ve just recently found some news clippings and photos that indicate he might have been a pretty good stick back in the day.
My father introduced me to the game and would take me out to Finley to get on the practice range, hit some putts and eventually start participating in clinics. We would play the course on occasion when time permitted. I enjoyed it, but I didn’t love it. I was getting better at tennis so that is where I spent most of my time and since my dad played tennis too that was what we did together most.
As time went on, my dad was more focused on the responsibilities of being a husband, a father and professor at the University of North Carolina and he just stopped playing golf. It wasn’t a conscious decision; it just happened that way as the time and expense no longer fit neatly into the calendar of his busy life.
I went off to college in Charlotte, N.C. and would play some golf here and there with friends and then Dad and I would try to find a few days in the summers to go down to the N.C./S.C. coast and get in a few rounds. We hit the Myrtle Beach hot spots like Gator Hole, Possum Trot and Eagle’s Nest among others. We’d have fun, spend some time together and then both return to our respective homes. But for the most part that was where golf resided in our relationship, a time to get together here and there, just the two of us and spend time.
I’ve spent my entire life working in the sports industry and as I reached my mid-40’s I was starting to play more “work” golf, at nice courses, and was tired of stinking up the joint. So, I talked with my wife about us joining a club and taking the sport more serious and wanting to get better. And that is what I did. At roughly the same time my father had been retired a few years and with urging from the entire family he finally sent in a deposit to re-join Finley and start playing golf again. This was great as there would now be many more outings between us and something to look forward to.
Our golf journeys went in different directions shortly after that. My Dad took a bad fall on the ice in his driveway just weeks after sending in his deposit, and one thing led to another for him health-wise and he never got to play golf again. I, on the other hand, was now playing more than ever. I didn’t get better right away but when Covid hit in March of 2020 and most sports went on hiatus, or full pause, I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands. And, like many during this time, I turned to golf and finally started to get better.
I held out hope, as did my dad, that things would turn around for him and we used the opportunity to golf together again as that carrot for him to recover. I was turning 50 in May of 2021 and in the year prior a good friend of mine, Eric, and I, started to plan an epic trip overseas to celebrate the occasion. My wife blessed what turned out to be a 14-day trip with a round of golf every day at a who’s who of iconic golf courses in Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland. I’d list them out, but it would get obnoxious and make the ’27 Yankees Murderer’s Row look like a bunch of “Punch and Judy” hitters.
Eric’s father would be our third and in an ideal world my father would have been our fourth, but that ship had unfortunately long since sailed. Instead, I kept him updated on our planning. I told my dad that the last course we were going to be playing on our trip was the Old Course at St. Andrews. He immediately said to “birdie 18 for me”. It felt like a throwaway line to me at the time, like hit a home run for me or score a touchdown, just a default thing to say. But as the trip got closer, any time it came up in conversation, he would say the same thing, “birdie 18 for me” and it started to feel like there was more meaning to it.
Ireland was incredible. Not only were we playing these unreal courses every day but traveling from site to site we got to see so much of the countryside. It was everything I hoped it would be. I checked in at home every couple days, and each conversation with my father included some version of “Wish you were here and wish I was there with you”. He was in spirit of course but that isn’t quite the same. I played some good golf and had some good rounds and had a few others I’d rather forget but after seven days in Ireland and Northern Ireland we made our way to Scotland.
On the second day there we were playing North Berwick, a treat to say the least. That is until from the deep rough on 16, I sent a 9-iron greenside only to feel like I had been shot in my left side. I went down to one knee and the pain was real and I favored that side as I got up and walked. I tried to tee off on 17 and about doubled over in pain. I had pulled my oblique, badly, and we had five more days on the trip with some of the most iconic courses still in front of us.
I tried to ice it that night in preparation for an early morning tee time at Muirfield the next day. The first shot on the range verified my worst nightmare, I couldn’t take a full swing. But with that round right in front of me, followed by Carnoustie, Kingsbarns, the New Course and the Old Course still to go I was determined to figure out how to play. The money was spent, and I had no desire to just sit in a hotel room. So, I modified a swing, just trying to slap the ball forward – a “Punch and Judy” if you will. It’s a tactic that fortunately has some merit in Scotland as if you can get the ball rolling it will keep going.
The results weren’t pretty, but I was out there. Muirfield was bad – correction, really bad. Carnoustie was not a whole lot better. By the time we got to Kingsbarns I had figured out a swing that I was able to repeat more often and had some good holes including several pars in a row at one stretch. At the New Course I had it dialed in… four pars and 14 bogey’s – not bad all things considered – no blow-up holes on the card.
The last day of the trip was of course at the Old Course. You almost don’t believe you are standing on the first tee and about to play it. The swing consistency of the day before was gone but I was making my way around and just enjoying the history of where my feet were. When we got to 17 tee, I looked at Eric and said I didn’t come all the way over here to slap this ball around the hotel, I’m going for it. So, I gripped it and ripped it and couldn’t have hit it better if 100% healthy. But I paid for it. Damn did it hurt, but in the moment, I felt it was worth it.
When we got to 18 tee, what had been in the back of my mind since we arrived and for the better part of almost a year came front and center. I needed to make birdie for my dad. I hadn’t birdied a single hole since we landed in Scotland, and I just re-aggravated my oblique – the timing was not ideal. But everything is right in front of you on the 18th so I just needed to summon up one more straight slap of the ball down the center and let it run and give myself a chance. That is not what happened – a dead pull left. The good news was I was in the fairway. The bad news is that it was the fairway on hole #1. But if you are ever going to miss left off the tee anywhere in the world then the 18th hole at St. Andrews is the place to do it.
We headed towards Swilcan Bridge and took our pictures. We took a group photo, and I got an individual photo and then Eric and his father got one together. It hit me then how badly I wished my dad was there in person, not just spirit, to share that moment. I started the trek to my ball with my 5-iron in hand which had become my second shot club for the last five days almost regardless of distance. It was an easy decision when I got there, just punch it towards the green and hope you get a good bounce and a good roll over the various terrain of hills. From my location I couldn’t tell for sure where it ended up, but I knew it was on the green.
The picture you see at the top of this blog post was my ball on 18 green and the putt in front of me. (You’ll have to pardon the yellow ball as I was at the end of a 14-day trip and into my final emergency sleeve.) When I first saw it, and what looked like an 8-10 ft. putt, I just stopped and took a picture. I took hundreds and hundreds of pictures all week of all the courses and sites along the way. But this was the only picture I took of my ball as the central figure of the photo.
When it came my turn to putt, I was a mess, with a million thoughts in my head. You could convince me it would break right, or break left, and I don’t even recall what the caddie told me. Eventually I just put the ball in motion towards the hole and I’ll be damned if it didn’t go in. Emotions immediately hit me both with a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye. I took the ball out of the hole and looked at Eric and he was smiling. He knew. I had told him. There was an older couple looking on from the road leaning on the fence’s cross pole. But I felt one more person was there too, even if just in spirit, and in that moment that was good enough.
I made the call to my dad back at the hotel and told him “we” birdied 18 at St. Andrews and I could tell it made him emotional too. My oblique didn’t even seem to hurt as much anymore, or I just didn’t care – my trip had been made. One day I may be fortunate enough to make my first hole-in-one or hit the shot or putt to win a club championship (albeit a net win from a lower flight) but no matter what, when or where, I will never hit a more meaningful shot the rest of my life. And I am good with that.
After the trip I returned home and dove back into work. Our company had pivoted earlier that year with a focus on golf, creating 5 Clubs, and we were just publicly launching and about to go full speed with it. I made sure dad was in the loop any time something good happened and as we made progress. Golf was now part of my everyday life and a full-fledged passion.
As for golf itself, we did get my dad out to our club one day. He watched my then 12-yr old daughter hit a few balls on the range and then the three of us putted around on the practice green having a mini contest, his steps too unsteady to do any more than that. As it turned out it would be the last time a club would be in his hands. But it’s a day I won’t forget.
Golf would find its way into our story arc again at the end. The last good day we spent together, and by that, I mean I was able to wheel him into the sunroom of his home and sit and talk with him, was May 6, the day after I turned 52 and the third round Saturday at the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow Club. My in-laws have been members at Quail Hollow for decades and it was where my wife and I got married in 2006 and where my dad served as my best man. We had a couple tee times for family and groomsmen the day before where I played with my dad, so it was fun to reminisce about those days and see what he remembered of the course as we spent the afternoon together.
I left that evening, played with buddies the next morning back home and then got the call that he had taken a downturn as our round had just 
finished up. I returned to my childhood home again the next day where I would spend the next two weeks at his bedside. That first week we talked about a lot of serious things and mixed in some golf talk. He told me to pick a place and go play it for us. We talked about it and settled on Shinnecock not too far from where he grew up in his home state and a place he loved to see on TV for the big events. It also just so happens to be one of the original five clubs that formed the USGA and the foundation for our platform name – 5 Clubs. I’m not sure if I will ever get there, but if I do, I will be playing for the two of us. It was then that I reminded him that we birdied 18 at St. Andrews and with his eyes closed and a satisfied look on his face he said, “yes we did.” The “we” part of that meant everything as he drifted off to sleep.
As the PGA Championship got under way at Oak Hill my dad wasn’t really able to communicate much anymore. For the next four days the tournament was on in the background either on my iPad or the TV from early in the morning until late at night. I watched with the sound almost inaudible as I sat next to him and monitored him and tried to make him comfortable. I finally headed back to be with my family as Koepka and Hovland made the Sunday turn having made some peace with the hardest good-bye of my life.
I got the call that my dad had passed the next day early in the evening of May 22. I was prepared but nothing truly prepares you for that actual moment. My wife and daughter did their best for me, and we hugged, cried and talked about my hero. The support around me has been overwhelming.
Golf will be part of the bow that gets tied with my dad. On Sunday, June 18, Father’s Day, they will play the final round of the U.S. Open at the North Course at Los Angeles Country Club. It will be my 14th Father’s Day as a dad to my daughter, Grayson, and obviously the first without my own father. The irony is not lost on me that LACC just happens to be my favorite course and golf “hang” I’ve ever had the privilege to play. Despite getting my teeth kicked in both times, when you have Danny Boehle and the “Big Cocktail” as your hosts and my friend Eric with me it’s hard to spend too much time worrying about the 3-putts that are piling up. I would have enjoyed talking to my dad about the course, telling him the bunkers I spent too much time in and maybe the occasional hole where I posted a good number. Instead, I will gather with my immediate and extended family around the same time that another name gets engraved on the U.S. Open Trophy, and undoubtedly the winner will be asked about what it means to win on Father’s Day with a likely arc between the winner and his own Father, or, if he happens to live in that sweet space, to win as a Father, kids at his side.
That next day will be the service to say goodbye and celebrate the life of my Father. I’ll deliver the final remarks in remembrance of a great man. Golf won’t be central to the story, it never was, but it will be there, because it always has been. And I’m grateful for that role golf played between me and my dad for the same reason that I am grateful that it is in its infancy between me and my daughter. She’s at the stage where she is trying to figure out if she loves it or hates it. We’ve all been there. I love nothing more than taking her to the range or to putt or to get out on the course with her. I doubt it will ever be central to our story either, but I have a feeling it will always be there because that is what bonds do, they connect you to something much more meaningful – the time and memories you create with loved ones.