Jack Nicklaus was someone I admired as a kid growing up in N'Awlins, as Daddy would usually spend his weekends watching the golf tournaments on tv.
While Dad never was a golfer, he enjoyed watching the game and seeing other golf pro folks like Gary Player, Lee Trevino and Tom Watson battle out the matches on the greens.
How neat that the English Turn Golf course on the West Bank of New Orleans is a course designed by Jack!
Dad and I did go out a few times to play "Putt Putt" - that was the closest we came to making "holes in one" - which we did occasionally but on a smaller scale!
Dad instilled in me and my siblings the need to take a "swing at life" to the fullest and keep focused on the most important things in life - faith, family and fun!
Dad was always optimistic about "Eagling or Birdying" in anything, as that was surely "par for the course of his life!"
Sure, he had some regular "Bogies in Life," like when his beloved Tulane Football Green-ies would almost always lose to LSU, but he still got out of those "bunkers" and found a way to congratulate Uncle Warren - except in 1973 - when Tulane finally won after 25 years!
Dad achieved his own "Golf Grand Slam" better than Jack Nicklaus did when Dad would make "holes in one" per his "stock market caddying," and he got others to invest in "Tri-continental fund courses."
In early 2006 - after the "Gulf Storm Roughs of Katrina" were spread, it was so difficult to place Daddy in a nursing home for his 24 hour care needs after he and Mom were displaced and had moved in to stay with us.
Both Mom and Dad died later that year, but as Dad was known to have said about many things in life: "I was a lucky guy," and I certainly can attest that he certainly made many holes in one - and I am blessed to have been his son.
And as is in the golf tradition, I will now buy all a round of drinks for my dad's "holes in one" and hereby make a toast to all dads; prayers for healing and forgiveness to those who have had understandably difficult relationships with their dads.
Keith John Paul Horcasitas, 1133 Knollhaven Drive, BRLA 70810, khorcasitas.yahoo.com, June 1, 2014.
A great honor to your father. He would appreciate reading it if he were here.
My father was a trucker who loved sports and played softball until he was 45. His other passion was bowling in winter. Said once that he could have been a professional bowler. Even though they had a retirement home on the lake in northern Wisconsin, Dad wasn't too interested in hunting and fishing and didn't have too many hobbies except occasional projects to improve his property and continually helping out others with their projects.
As he neared retirement without hobbies, I wondered what he would do in retirement. Suddenly, he took up golfing at 60 and soon had my mother golfing too. He retired at 62 and golfed until about 2000 when his health failed. He died in 2005 having about 20 years of good times golfing, sometimes with three of his sons in retirement. We always knew what to get him on Father's Day.
A wicked Cajun Fairy named Robes Pierre entered the impenetrable Magical doll land of Sha Bebe. Queen Faustina, the ruler of the doll land, thought she had destroyed him, but he's back! Will the doll land survive his evil ways?
Jack Nicklaus was someone I admired as a kid growing up in N'Awlins, as Daddy would usually spend his weekends watching the golf tournaments on tv.
