Golf and Goodwill Toward Men

John Haines

I was playing the Tommy Armour mini-tour back in the early nineties when my ‘then wife’ decided she would prefer to spend her life with the portly fifty-something marketing manager at the company where she worked.

It was bad timing. I had just figured out the key to succeeding on this particular tour. It was so simple: just reduce my shot attempts per round. I had been playing like Allen Iverson, hitting plenty of spectacular shots but with too many misses in-between. What was I thinking!

My ‘then wife’ would eventually comment that my discovery was categorically whoop-de-doo. “Categorically?” Hmmm… six syllables…The Round Man from marketing had to be consulting her. Turns out they had been feverishly consulting with each other for some time while I was in Florida.

“Come on, Cady will be crushed, this will kill her,” I whined at the time. Cady was our little one, she came with the marriage, but I loved her like she was my own. But, alas, she died soon after our split, well before the divorce was final--and well before her time. She was a loving and lovable little Lhasa Apso. But…her Hainer, the one almost as cocky as she, had been sent away.

I decided to come back to Wisconsin to deal with the divorce, taking the crisis as a sign (one of several) that professional golf was a pipe-dream. So-- I had no job, no wife, no dog, and no clue what to do next. I was low on cash and moved in with my folks.

I did have good friends however. I talked to my good buddy and best ball partner Tom Halla, I gave him my comically rehearsed and reggae-inflected litany of “no chick, no job, no dog, no clue. Jah! I’m 36 years old and living with my folks. Jah!” routine, but I had to add that “at least I’m puring it---Jah!.”

Tom, who I thought was only pretending to listen, said “Well… just be glad it’s not the other way around…mon.”

I said “Yeah mon, from sad to tragic….thot woould be bad.”

I called my buddy and fellow golfer Bob Gregroski, still practicing law back then, and said, “Hey Bob, I got some legal looking crap in the mail, says I’m a respondent, what should I do?”

Long story short, Bob clobbered “opposing counsel,” charged me very little, and after every hearing or signature session, we would meet with our buddy Mike Dailey at Milwaukee Country Club where he is a member. There, the three of us played golf amidst the splendor that is that place. After, we’d sit in the locker room with a beverage and peel away the layers of the feminine mystique and break down the nuanced application of various idiosyncratic measures we might want to try with our future soul-mates--it was either that or our position at the top. You know, left wrist, cupped or bowed? It’s a bit of a blur now.

Whatever, the divorce process had become significantly less painful. Bob and Mike’s divorces didn’t happen for at least another year, but when they did, my pullout couch was theirs whenever. Still, I couldn’t ever do as much as they did for me back in those days.

I landed a job in my former industry; paperboard packaging sales and got an apartment. Along with my family, my golf buddies helped me move. Later, when I bought a small house on the Milwaukee River, my golf buddies again helped me move. After remarrying, we bought a new house on #5 Blue of Mequon Country Club. This time, I simply felt I had to do this move without calling on my buddies. After all, I had hired some movers for all the big stuff. We were moving a week before last Christmas. I would simply handle it. Then the closing date was changed.

When I hurriedly got everything boxed and ready, it became obvious there was no way I could get out of my old house in time to close, even with my ever helpful folks, who at nearly seventy can work as hard as Vijay Singh would like to. The night before the move, I called Christo Van Pietersom and Tommy Welton, famous golfers and notorious employees at The Bog. I said, “Help.” They did.

They showed up the next morning and worked like pack mules. After several hours, Tommy called Bill Raebuck, head pro at The Bog, the place they were supposed to be working--for money--not a sub sandwich, a few beers and some cold pizza. I heard him say on the phone, “uh…The Hainer he, ahh….no way we can leave him. He’s got more…more stuff than a Home Despot.” Billy Ray said, “Stay.”

Paul Zarek, a fine golfer and a good friend popped some pills for a sore back and worked hard too. We got it done, and we got it done because my guys showed up. These were big moments in my life, and they were there for me on a 23 degree day the week before Christmas.

Golf is the ultimate glue for bonding among fellows. There is something about the entire process: sharing tips and stories and misery and Advil. The competing becomes a relative cycle of relentless truth; sailing on the good days, plowing through the bad days and tugging at the leash on the many days in-between. Seeing each other work so hard, grinding and swearing at themselves in cartoon voices, only to improve a fraction more, if at all; and then, taking some time off or playing hurt with no hope at all, and have it lead to a high finish or even victory. Sometimes we see each other scrape it around and achieve something good using smoke and mirrors. The very next day, we might smoke the ball with ease, yet must avoid mirrors for fear the reflection may just shake its head and look away. How do you turn 72 into 80 Mr. Brainless? Tsk, tsk… another day, another hazard stake up the ass (sigh.)

We know how cuckoo it can get. And only comrades in competition can know why. I mean, really know why. Why? Because we know that there will be times we can never know why. It is a funky kind of knowledge really, to know that you cannot always know.

It’s going to happen like that sometimes, but there is salvation in knowing it’s not forever. And when you eventually do lapse, there is nothing left to do but eat the Coco Puffs. But hey, everybody suffers and redemption always beckons, it’s an endless loop that goes at a speed that reflects one’s ability. Ultimately, and existentially, it is simply the shared experience in a common pursuit among different people that glues us all together. I guess that part goes for many things in life. Again, lines blur.

Not everyone, however, merits such kudos in this Christmastime message. There are guys who reveal the ‘Scrooge within’ regardless of how well they may play. But we must never forget how fun they are to talk about and make fun of. I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge how skilled some golfers are at just that. Is it nature or nurture, I don’t know, but the great ones have that certain something when it comes to verbally devastating the jackals that have it coming. When those rather few bad guys get lampooned by the good guys, well, it’s often pretty funny. But when good guys get lampooned by good guys, over a burger and a beer and in the presence of each other, it sometimes gets so funny that human fluids can go unmanaged.

“If you want to truly know a man, play 18 holes with him.” This is a famous quote from someone who I would guess is considered very wise. It has some truth to it, but change it to, “If you want to truly know a man, compete season after season with him,” and you can chuckle at the folly of how little the 18 holes told you. After so many seasons, however, the lines between golf and life eventually do blur into one. The people you compete against, with the fires of hell raging in your gut, end up being your insurance agent, your dentist (The Driller,) or a business associate. I’d like to mention everyone, but…all I have to do is forget one, and BOOM, there is one less person who may have helped me move next time. Seriously, I had to use a calculator to recall my age the other day, so it’s a chance I won’t take.


It’s all been said better by smarter guys (albeit much shorter hitters,) but the friendships I have with the good folks I’ve met through golf are a blessing of far more value than any tangible “gift” I could receive for Christmas. In fact, it is our many friendships in action that reflect the spirit of the season more accurately than all the colored lights and candy canes and Ho Ho Ho’s combined.

And it is going on right now (golfers cursing in cartoon voices,) all around the world (lampooning and laughter,) great friendships (“...uh, no way we can leave him,”) through the great game of golf (Cuckoo for CoCo Puffs.)

“Think where a man’s glory most begins and ends,” wrote William Butler Yeats, “and say my glory was I had such friends.” It is good to feel this way, even when you ache to hoist, high into the sky, the bloody and still beating heart of your best friend in the final round of the State match play. What better time to recognize this than at Christmas. (Someone please say “God bless us everyone.”)

And to think some of my buddies think a manger is the guy who runs their club.


Off season’s greetings and Merry Christmas to everyone. The New Year beckons.