Golf, Michael & Cole

Golf the sport. Not golf a person like Michael or Cole.

Golf is very important to me. It’s my favourite activity. I like it more than running or yoga or anything else.

I started playing when I was about eight years old up in the Laurentians. There was a nine hole course across the field from our house. I used to play or practice every day, often with my best summertime friend, Tadz. Tadz (pronounced Todge) was his Polish name, reserved for family and close friends. Everyone else called him Ted.

I loved playing and I loved practicing. Golf was an unsolvable puzzle. It fed my nature to seek continuous improvement. The Japanese call it Kaizen.

I stopped playing golf when I started university because I couldn’t play as often as I wanted and my game deteriorated. Golf became a source of frustration. I preferred to not play at all rather than not play as well as I was accustomed to playing.

After about twenty years of not playing, I decided to take the game up again after our children were born. It was still frustrating because I couldn’t play very often, but I told myself it was a nice way to spend time in nature. But Mark Twain was right. Golf is a good walk spoiled.

Cole took a liking to golf when he was young. Or more likely he played because he enjoyed spending time with me. I’m not sure who liked spending time more with who. Big Bear and Little Bear enjoyed spending time with each other no matter what they did.

My Coley-Boy was a very good athlete. Not a jaw dropping, amazing athlete at every sport, but he definitely had an athletic ease about him. Sports came naturally to him. Especially sports requiring good hand-eye coordination, like golf.

As a decent athlete who always worked hard at whatever sports I played, I admired Cole’s athletic ability. With his natural abilities and my determination and work ethic, he might have been good enough to play a pro sport. But I didn’t want to be the kind of parent who forces their kid to follow their own unfulfilled dreams. If Cole wanted to pursue a sport seriously, it would be up to him. We once asked him if he wanted to try out for a higher level hockey team and he said “No, I want to keep playing with my friends.” That was Cole. He understood what was important.

When I watched Cole play golf at a young age, I knew he was something special. I’ve played with and watched a lot of very high level golfers. Cole could have been in that class. He was perfectly suited to golf and golf was the perfect game for him.

You need a special kind of mind to be a great golfer. Cole had that kind of mind. Pressure didn’t bother him. He liked playing the pressure positions of goalie in hockey, pitcher in baseball and point guard in basketball. I was always so impressed, and proud, at how calm he seemed and I loved watching this calmness when he played.

No matter what sport he was playing, he had the ability to see the entire game and predict what would happen next. I still remember my first “wow” golf moment with Cole. He was very young, maybe seven or eight, and didn’t hit the ball very far yet. He was in the middle of the fairway, but the green was still too far away for him to reach it with his next shot. Instead of aiming straight at the green, he aimed to the left of it. I asked him why he was aiming left. He said “Because if I hit the ball there it will hit that mound and bounce to the right and roll farther and maybe make it to the green.” I thought “How does he think of these things? Most adult golfers wouldn’t even think that.”  

One summer we signed Cole up for golf camp. Just him. No friends. He would be picked up by a school bus and taken to camp. On the first day of camp I wondered how he’d react to the bus. He was still young and never had to take a bus before. Would he be nervous? Would he cry? Would he not want to get on the bus? When the bus arrived, Cole said goodbye, stepped onto the bus, didn’t look back and that was that.

It was the same on his first day of pre-school. I was nervous for his first day. As a parent, you never know how your child will react. There was no need to worry. We said goodbye to Cole. Wished him a good morning. Told him we’d be back to pick him up. Gave him a kiss. And he turned around and walked into class without looking back. Just like that. Any tears shed were ours.

Cole continued to play golf with me as he grew up. It never consumed him the way it consumed me. That wasn’t his personality. He played mostly because he enjoyed spending time with me, but didn’t want to dedicate himself to a sport. Inside, I had to constrain myself from pushing him. I wanted to see how good he could be. I knew he could be great if that’s what he wanted, but it wasn’t my decision to make.

One day we played with the club champion. Cole was probably about twelve years old. They both hit their tee shots on a par three to the same spot. (Forgive me if I get a little detailed here.) They had a tight, sharp downhill lie to a downhill pin. It would be next to impossible to get the ball to stop close to the hole. I just hoped Cole didn’t embarrass himself too badly. The club champion went first. He did his best, but his ball ran well past the hole. Then it was Cole’s turn. He quietly chose his club, calmly walked up to his ball, looked at the hole, then hit this beautifully soft little floater that almost made me gasp as it trickled down close to the hole. He had fantastic hands. So soft.  

He had the mind. He had the soft hands and short game. And when he got older and bigger he hit the ball a ton. So much farther than me. He delighted in teasing me about this. I kept thinking “Is there a way for me to give him my determination and work ethic or for him to give me his raw talent?”

He took some lessons over the years, but he also taught himself by figuring things out on his own. He liked to do that. With everything. He didn’t accept what you’d tell him. He needed to learn it on his own or verify it for himself.

Sometimes Cole tried to emulate me on the golf course. Once, when I asked him why he was sliding his hips instead of rotating them which was the proper thing to do, he said “Because I see you do that.” I told him not to copy me and thanked him for pointing out that flaw in my swing.  

As Cole got older he lost interest in golf. It took too much time and he was busy with other things. He’d play with me once or twice a year because he knew how much I enjoyed his company. He’d stand on the first tee after not playing for a year and belt out a drive 250 or 300 yards down the middle of the fairway. Then he’d look at me and smile that smile because he knew we were thinking the same thing – that it was funny how he could do that seemingly effortlessly while I could never do that no matter how much I practiced. I always felt a combination of admiration, pride and a little envy when he did things like that.

Although we hardly played together in his later years, we still talked about my game. He was interested in knowing how I played. I loved talking to him about golf. He knew my game and he understood how my mind works. He would offer me tips without even seeing me play. Once in a while he’d come out to the driving range or play nine holes with me. I’d ask him questions about how he was able to do what he did, but it was like asking someone how they paint or write music. It’s hard to explain what comes to someone naturally.

The golf course has always been a sanctuary for me. I love being out in nature. I love walking. And I love being so immersed in what I’m doing that I feel like I’m meditating. Golf does all that for me.

Cole died on November 13, four days after I played my last round of the season. I remember thinking that if I could get through the winter I’d start to feel better when golf season started up again because I’d be able to return to my sanctuary.

I made it through the winter, spending a lot of time down south by the ocean and going for a lot of walks. I was glad when golf season arrived in the spring.

Golf has definitely helped me cope with Cole’s loss. It’s a distraction. Not all the time, but sometimes. My mind takes a break from the grief when it gets into that meditative state. But there are also times on the golf course when I tear up because I miss playing with Cole so much. I’ll never get to see his great shots or share a smile at something that’s happened on the course again.

I look for visits from Cole when I play. On occasion I’ve seen a deer stop and stare at me. There was also a rabbit that kept looking at me for five minutes even when I got really close to it. Most often, though, Cole comes to visit me as the screeching hawk I see almost every time I play, soaring majestically above like Cole would soar. There have been hawks on the course for as long as I can remember, but they didn’t make noise like this one’s making this year. Mia said it’s Cole talking to me and saying he wants to come play with me. That’s such a heartwarming thought.

Cole is with me wherever I go. We were too close and there are too many memories for it to be any other way. It’s hard to describe, but many memories make me sad and happy at the same time. They make me tear up or cry and feel a knot in my stomach, but they also give me a warm feeling in my heart. It’s painful to feel these mixed emotions, but that’s the way these moments are. And I wouldn’t have them any other way because I’d pay any price to relive my precious moments with my precious boy.

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