I didn’t grow up in a golf family. My father was a teacher and owned a landscaping business. We were a dirt-on-our-Hanes-T-shirts family. No blue or white collars here.
Golf came to me in college. As my passion for it developed and it became a large part of my career, I’ve often wondered what it would be like growing up with a club in my hands, sharing special moments on the course with my father, which I witnessed countless times secondhand. Certainly, it’s something I hope to develop with my two sons.
Those feelings were stirred again reading The Philly Phenoms. At its heart, the book is a love story about how a father-son relationship can be strengthened through golf and forge a bond so powerful, it can help a family overcome anything.
There are fun moments on the course and a boorish antagonist you can’t help but loathe. For me, my thoughts centered on fathers and sons and golf as I read it.
The book, written by Nate Oxman, a Philadelphia-area teacher and caddy at Merion Golf Club, follows 10-year-old Lee Lomax as his passion for golf evolves from hobby to obsession. Lee helps his father Sam, who was a stick in his youth, rediscover his love for the game and competition, culminating in a climactic charity match against two pros.
The adoration Lee has for his father is amplified on the course. The resilience his father shows, on and off the course, heightens his son’s reverence. It’s the quintessential father-son-golf relationship—one predicated on mutual respect, appreciation and a shared love of a game they play together.
It was a fun peek into a world I never experienced. Oxman said he wove many personal anecdotes into the book, which makes it so authentic. A love of golf developing in adolescence, lessons learned on the course that extend off it, a father and son forging a bond that will last a lifetime. There’s beauty in honesty.
For me, that admiration was cultivated on grass too. Not around sport, but enterprise, physicality and a devotion to one’s family you must have pushing a lawnmower for 40 years.
Like Lee, I idolize my father. Like Lee, it came from watching him do things that seemed superhuman. One did it cutting grass with a golf club. Another with a blade.
The Philly Phenoms is a beautiful reminder of that love.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as What is the Quintessential Father-Son Golf Relationship? A New Book Seeks an Answer.
