The Kiwi Won

I just finished watching the U S Open and realized today is Father’s Day. It’s because of my father that I watch golf, even though I have never played.

When I moved alone to Florida in my late 20’s, my parents followed. Not out of any sense of parental duty, but because my father disliked the cold of Indiana winters as much as I did.

My father was retired. He retired at a relatively early age related to a heart condition that limited the work he could do. For the most part, he found retirement extremely boring and tedious.

He would watch any thing on TV that was advertised as a sport, and because my brothers lived in other states, I would join him on Saturday afternoons so he wouldn’t have to watch alone. In retrospect, he probably didn’t mind watching alone, but it gave us a chance to bond that we had missed while I was growing up in a home with 5 brothers and sisters.

My father and I watched everything from golf and basketball to tennis and pro-bowling to lacrosse and curling. (He was on his own when it came to football.) Being transplanted Hoosiers, our favorite, of course, was basketball. I already knew when to hoop & hollar and when to yell at the ref and when to blame the coach. It was a game with rules that made sense to me. I learned to follow Big Ten college ball and discuss the games at Sunday dinner. When my father died, I stopped watching basketball.

But I still watch golf.