Do yourself a favor and read Gary Player’s newest book.  If you’re a golfer you’ll love it, but you don’t have to be a golfer to get it.  Gary’s life is an absolute testament to the will of making one’s life better through sheer determination.  This man isn’t just a hero to golf, he’s a hero to the world.

Born the son of a gold miner in South Africa, Gary lost his mother to cancer when he was a child.  He really had nothing to start out with other than love and encouragement from his brother and sister and later his father.  That, it turns out, was all he needed.  What you will take away from it is the green light to go for whatever it is you want out of golf, or life.  The point is, have a plan, stick to it, go for it will every ounce of courage you have in your body and accept whatever the result.  While you can’t always control the result, you can always control the effort and the attitude.  That of course is the point.

Gary Player also talks about something else that is a crisis in our country, obesity.  Player plays the fat card and says it’s a tragedy what’s becoming of fitness and nutrition in the USA.  Much of what he says is consistent with what a lot of us see and feel but don’t have the courage to say out loud for fear that we’ll hurt someone’s feelings.  Enough already, look around, we’re in trouble.  And when a guy of Gary Player’s commitment to fitness and healthy eating says it, the ”call out” carries more weight.

Timing is everything in life.  Reading Gary Player’s Don’t Choke book came at a time when I’ve been frustrated with much of what I’ve seen around me.  Let me give you one example.  Soccer is in season and wouldn’t you know it, the ice cream truck driver in my town must have the practice schedule of every team in our league.  Every practice he shows up with that annoying music blaring, disrupting the kids’ concentration.  I’m not kidding, many of the kids are distracted by the visual of the park trucked right next to the field.  They’re more concerned about when practice will be over and what they’re going to get.  It’s as if it’s a given they will get their ice cream, regardless of the effort. 

“I can’t stand when he comes by,” one child’s mother told me.  “He’s always here and it’s as if you have to buy it.” 

No you don’t.  There’s a powerful word in our vocabulary that we’re becoming increasingly afraid to use–no.  No you can’t have it.  No you haven’t earned it.  No you won’t die if you don’t have it. 

I like ice cream, a lot.  I have it once a week, sometimes twice if I have moment of weakness.  I’ve had a couple of those lately.  But I’m going to try to be better and say no more often my own cravings and those of my kids.  It takes courage to no to yourself and especially your kids, but it’s the right thing to do.  So in essense I’m going to play the Gary Player card.

I just finished reading Dream On, One Hack Golfer’s Challenge to Break Par in a Year.  It was an unlikely quest for a 24 handicapper and an Irishman’s Irishman, John Richardson, to meet the premise spelled out in the title.

I didn’t seek Dream On out, rather Richardson’s publicist contacted me.  As an author I know how it is seeking publicity.  You ask for it in places you think you might get it.  While I couldn’t provide that on television, I told them to send me a book with the promise that I’d review it on my website.  Here we are.

I’ve read a few books like this before that have a similar context, Tom Coyne’s Paper Tiger, in which the high single digit handicapped author attempted to qualify for the PGA Tour’s Qualifying School comes to mind.

John Richardson is a 24 handicapper trying to balance the demands of work and family while putting in the necessary diligence to give himself a shot at glory.  It’s a story that would’ve easily played out over a few pages of a magazine.  Richardson turned it into a book.  That won’t work for some readers who might see John Richardson’s working, personal and recreational life spelled out in 192 pages as information overload.  But then again those are the same people who read magazines because they have the attention span of a gnat, and they are the same people who hit into your group when the golf course is backed up.

 If you read Dream On in its entirety, you will learn to like John Richardson the man.  Like a lot of men with families, his golf joys are mixed with guilt for being away.  Who hasn’t felt the same way?  As he writes about balancing golf lessons, rounds and time on the range, we are left to wonder how happy our families would be with us if we took up a similar challenge.  And that’s where Dream On connects with the patient reader.  You will vicariously live through the author and his quest, substituting your own challenges and golf goals.

So the money question, is it worth your $23.95 and time?  I say yes.  Is it a must read like any John Feinstein golf book, or Mark Frost’s  The Match: The day the Game of Golf Changed Forever?  I wouldn’t go that far.  John Richardson worked for more than 15 years in the coffee-bar and restaurant industry.  Here’s an analogy of what Dream On amounts to in food terms.  It’s kind of like the corner pub, neighborhood diner, or Elbow Room.  You will not get an exquisite meal at those kind of places, but the food is always good, and you’re always glad you came.

Tiger Woods makes a statement at the Sawgrass Players Club, Friday, Feb. 19, 2010, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Joe Skipper, Pool)

So Tiger is coming back.  The Masters it is.  Here’s why it’s The Masters.  It’s a much more controlled environment than any other PGA Tour event. 

The Masters is not a tour event.  The Masters is its own entity.  You get there on merit, or by special invitation.  Going to The Masters is the golf equivalent of going to church.  It’s very southern, people are very respectful and there’s a sense of decorum that exceeds any other place.  There are no fans at Augusta National, there are patrons.  There are no tickets for The Masters, there are badges.  And badges are willed down through generations.  Act up, you’re out; probably out of your family too.

Tiger could have come back this week to play in the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill.  He’s the defending champion and a six time winner.  Plus everyone pays homage to Arnold, The King.  But Tiger’s not ready.  Tiger’s not one to knock the rust off in tour events.  He only plays when he’s absolutely ready and thinks he has a chance to win.   The Masters gives him three more weeks to get ready. 

Tiger’s return is good for golf and good for him.  Golf is his job, and a job is structure.  But his return as Golf Channel’s Rich Lerner so eloquently put it “sucks the life out” of The Masters as we usually know it.  All the talk before, during and after The Masters will be about Tiger.  Players will be asked about Tiger more than they’re asked about themselves, their game and the golf course.  That’s unfortunate, but that’s the way it is.

Because of that I would suggest Tiger do one thing the week before The Masters begins.  Call one last news conference, a real news conference in which he makes himself available to media questions, so he can answer whatever curiosities someone has about his private life.  It’ll be painful, but it won’t last forever.  He ought to be clear, “Guys this is the last time I’m ever going to talk about this, so ask it now and please leave my fellow professional golfers alone.  They shouldn’t have to suffer because of me.”

The media would respect that.  The players would too.  I think it would work.  But I doubt he’ll say anything more than he’s said already, which unfortunately makes the angst that’s still attached to this whole mess stick around longer.

Sandy & Chris Pablo

My hanai brother, Chris Pablo, was memorialized yesterday.  It was a final public sendoff for a man who is the heart and soul of my book, The Marrow in Me.  The picture on the cover is of me recreating Chris Pablo’s great golf ball discovery.  For those who need a refresher, or those who are new to my blog and The Marrow in Me story, Chris found a special ball in his basket at the driving range some 14 years ago.  The ball had the words BEAT LEUKEMIA stamped on the side.   Chris was diagnosed with the same disease just weeks prior.  Finding the ball gave him hope that he would find a cure for his cancer.  He did, with a bone marrow transplant that came from a man missing most of his legs.

By the time we got around to creating the cover shot of The Marrow in Me, Chris wasn’t well enough to do it.  So I did it for him.  We’d lose Chris a month after the book was released, but he had a chance to read through much of it.  He called to playfully scold me, “You kept me up all night and made me cry,” he said a few months back.

I’d be honored if you’d read the book to get to know the man behind the video clip below.  Without Chris I never would have been a bone marrow donor myself.  And because of Chris sharing his story, 86 other people searching for a bone marrow donor got their match and went to transplant too.  The book is inspiring, witty, tragic and triumphant.  Some have compared it to Tuesdays with Morrie.  A sizable chunk of the proceeds is going to cancer treatment and research programs, including The Hawaii Bone Marrow Donor Registry, which played a key role in Chris’s transplant and mine.  And if you really want to honor Chris, please click here to register as a potential bone marrow donor.  That’s probably the best way we can honor his memory.  Aloha and Mahalo, Kevin.       

Watch Video Clip of Chris Pablo Memorial

Talk about coming full circle.  I used to deliver The Times Chronicle in my Meadowbrook, PA neighborhood.  I think I got like 30-cents a delivery back then.  Today a feature story about the boy who never missed your driveway–ok well maybe a couple of times.

Watch video clip of Will Parr Interview, Courtesy of NECN

I promised to follow up and now I am.  I played a couple of holes yesterday with my new pal Will Parr.  I can call him a pal because after a round of golf, everyone’s my friend.  So Will is no different than every other golfer I’ve ever played with it.  Oh wait a minute, yes he is.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Will is missing most of his right leg due to Aggressive Fibromatosis/Desmoid Tumors.  To watch him swing in balance and to tee a ball up is really nothing short of Cirque de Soleil coordination.  “Really I don’t think about balance all that much.  It sort of comes naturally,” he told me as ventured down the fairways of Olde Salem Greens GC.  Will alternated between driving a single person golf cart and later carrying his own bag while balancing on crutches as we finished up on nine.

Will drives it close to 200 yards and on our day he had two clutch up and downs that showed some moxie.  But what I really like is his passion for the game, “What does golf do for me?  It gives me something to look forward to.  It’s nice to know that there’s something waiting for me at the end of the day.  It’s a release.”

“We’re so proud of him and the positive attitude he has about everything,” his dad Mike tells me.

“Will is such a positive influence on our team and the other teams,” says Salem High School Golf Coach Tom Doyle.  “He’s such a nice young man.  It’s people like Will that keep me in coaching.”

In addition to golf, Will told me he has a taste for politics.   My kind of guy again. 

Golf has given my everything I have in my life.  There really is nothing important in my life that doesn’t have some sort of golf connection.  I’ve talked with Tiger, chatted up Arnold Palmer and blocked Jack Nicklaus’ path on a bridge years ago as a kid.  Those are memories I’ll have forever and they mean the world to me.  But I’ll tell you something else, my late afternoon round of golf with Will Parr and Tom Doyle was right up there.  It was so cool.  And keep your eye on this Parr kid.  I think he’s going to make us even more proud in the years to come.

I love the story of 15-year-old Will Parr because he loves golf and plays it despite the most challenging of challenges.   He lost a leg because of Aggressive Fibromatosis and Desmoid Tumors.  Will is a freshman on the Salem High School junior varsity golf team in Salem, Mass.  He gets around on crutches, but drops them to the ground when it’s time to swing.  He shoots in the low 50s for 9 holes.   Will told The Salem Times a buddy introduced him to the game by taking him to the course one day.  ”I just had a good time and got hooked.”

Will’s story reminds me of a time when my fellow teammates and me on Purdue University’s Men’s and Women’s Teams were playing a friendly four-ball match and we saw another disabled golfer the next fairway over doing much the same thing, only he bowed his crutches in when he swung the club while standing on one leg.

The women’s coach saw us looking over and told us, “I don’t ever want to hear you guys ever complain about your golf games again. ”

I saw that golfer again a few times again over the season and he always seemed to have a smile on his face.  It was contagious.  His smile made me smile, and it certainly made me forget about whatever bad shots I’d hit earlier.

I wish I knew that young man’s name from Purdue and more about him.  But I guess I’ll get another shot kinda sorta when I meet Will, a mulligan if you will.  I’m working to set up a story with him this week for New England Cable News and Comcast Sportsnet.  I’ll follow up.  Do you have any inspiring stories to share?  Please post them on my blog.

Sometimes your heart needs a lift, even when it’s not heavy. I was feeling pretty good going into the Jimmy Fund Golf Committee golf tournament in Bolton, Massachusetts; and I felt a lot better after leaving it. David J. McGillivray, the Boston Marathon Director spoke. More than 30 years ago he ran across America to raise money for The Jimmy Fund. With a groovy 70s-style mustache and primative running shoes, David ran from Medford, Oregon to Medford, Massachusetts. It took him little more than a month. He averaged 45 miles a day. That my friends is commitment.