As I’ve written in years past, my father Mich and I have a long history of playing in the Northern California Family Golf Championship on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park Golf Course. This challenging tree-lined par three course is tucked away in the western part of the park on 47th and Fulton. We won the beginner’s fifth flight when I was 10 years old and we won the championship flight twice 25 years ago, in 1993 and 1994.
I consider those three wins the highlights of my illustrious (in my own mind) golf career.
My now-13-year-old son Jackson and I continued the tradition five years ago when we won the beginner’s fifth flight. The trophy was nearly as big as Jackson. Our goal then changed to winning the championship flight. Two years ago we reached the semi-finals and then my world changed completely a few days prior to our match.
Long story short is that due to a staph infection in my compromised leg I had to have my leg amputated above the knee two years ago today. We obviously had to withdraw from the tournament and, for a long time, I never thought I’d play again.
However, that changed when my son gave me a pep talk on Father’s Day five months ago. For my gift Jackson gave me a dozen Titleist balls, a “#1 Dad” ball mark and a greeting card telling me he hoped we’d play again soon. Later that day we went out and played. It wasn’t pretty but we played 18 holes. After a few months of figuring out how to play again with my state-of-the-art prosthetic leg, I signed us up for the family golf tournament.
Before I let you know how we played, I first have to thank a long-time friend of ours who runs the event, George Ambrosia. Even though I’m able to safely walk around town with crutches or a cane I’m not able to safely navigate the hilly golf course. For whatever reason, Golden Gate Park has never offered golf carts. So George took it upon himself to make multiple phone calls to city officials in the Parks and Recreation Department. Due to his persistence he was able to secure a golf cart for me a week before the tournament from Harding Park. For three weeks straight a cart was waiting for me every time we arrived.
Jackson and I renewed our early morning preparation of hitting golf balls in the dark at Windsor Golf Course before driving down the San Francisco for our 8 a.m. tee time. We played great in the qualifier and ended up in the championship flight. I must admit I thought we’d end up in a lower flight where we’d have a better chance of winning. Alas, we would now be facing the top players.
In our first match, we had 10 family members show up but our bozo opponents didn’t show up and didn’t call George to let us know. We disappointedly won the match by forfeit. A week later we faced our first match against a very skilled father-son team from Marin County. After 9 holes we were 1 hole down and Jackson made a powerful comment to me.
“Dad, if you can just step up your game a bit I think we can win.”
So like a good dad I listened to my son and proceeded to nail my next four tee shots in this alternate shot format and Jackson rolled in two 20-foot birdie putts to secure our match play victory of three up with two holes to go. What a little motivational speaker that boy is!
Regardless of what happened going forward we felt like a million bucks. The match that I had to withdraw from two years ago was now behind us. We were back thanks to George, some hard work, and a state-of-the-art prosthetic leg that Kaiser was generous enough to provide me.
In our semi-finals match the following week we had five family members including my dad, my Uncle Greg and a couple of cousins. We ran into a father-son team who played like my dad and I 25 years ago. They didn’t miss a shot. We hung in there but ultimately lost four down with three holes to go. Although we lost, my son looked at the perpetual 62 year-old trophy and said to me, “Now that we’re back dad, it’s not if we win this tournament, it’s just a matter of when.”
I couldn’t agree more.
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