Clay, is there any way you could reprint any of your dads old ADG articles now that ADG is part of this board? When I first discovered HI you had some of those and if it is okay now, I for one, would love to see some of his articles if that is possible.
We have run them when they seemed appropriate. Not sure I’d know which ones to pick. We have run some in the magazine, but probably won’t do that on-line.
Thanks, I understand. The ones I loved were the stories about recruiting before the LOI days.
It would be wonderful to read his reports from Augusta National. To me those articles was his best work. Clay’s best work comes when he writes about people that he loves or admires.
Those are the easiest stories, when the passion comes out in big gushes. Doesn’t take long to write those pieces.
This will not surprise those who knew my father, but he talked golf at the drop of a hat. And he and I talked golf for many hours. He loved to go hit balls and have me stand behind me. He’d hit them for hours as I kept supplying him with balls. Now this started when I was about 14. And it continued until he could no longer grip a club. He loved golf and he knew that I saw the game with the same eyes as he did.
There was a time he wrote for Hawgs Illustrated. And, I was the owner. So I wrote the checks. He did not cash the first check I sent him. He put it on his wall with a thumb tack. I finally made my stepmother cash it. He was proud of that check.
I sent him a new Callaway Big Bertha driver when I realized that he was not switching over from persimmon. He was losing yardage to his playing partners. But he thought it was the classic way to play. So I sent him a driver.
So it was not long afterwards that my father finished the second edition of The Razorbacks, the book he co-authored with Jim Bailey. (I may update it some day.) He autographed a copy and sent it to me. It said, “To the best boss I ever had.” I thanked him for the book and asked him why I was his best boss. He said I was the only one who ever gave him a new driver!
Now my father loved the Hogs. It was his passion, too. But golf was about the only thing that could get him away from work. It was his real love. He grew up a caddie and two of his brothers built golf courses and were pros. He would have traded jobs with them.
I still have a love of golf. But I can’t practice because of three herniated discs in my neck. And, so when I play, it’s ugly because I’m not tuned up. I will hit some good shots, some really good shots and then some that are horrible. Clunkers. And so I turned to fishing.
A few years ago my wife told me she knows why I don’t play golf (despite all these great sets of clubs in the garage). She said, “You played golf so that you could have fun with your father. When he could no longer play golf, you stopped playing golf.” Of course, she knows me and she’s right.
All of this is to confirm that some of my father’s best work was the coverage of the Masters. He absolutely loved his time there. His very soul is there.
I smiled reading this remembering the story you told me about your dad and Augusta National. Thanks Clay.