Grandpa's Putter

At some point I ended up with my grandpa’s putter. 

Not any of his woods, irons, or wedges, not even a headcover – just the old brass putter itself, here in my garage. By my count, this is the sixth home in which I’ve had the putter: one-third of the way through a round of 18.

I have held onto the putter, though I have upgraded my golf clubs multiple times over the years. I have laid eyes on it just about every day of the last decade, though it has never gone with me to a course during that stretch. I cannot recall the nature of its bequeathment.

Neither can my grandpa, who at 93 is my lone living grandparent. He’s the one who taught me the fundamentals of golf, though I refused to love it at the time, and he refused to press the issue. Perhaps that is grandparent economics: the benefit of passing on your hobbies is not worth the fight of getting a grandchild to love them. 

My first round with Grandpa, my mom’s dad, came on a short course in Santa Barbara when I was nine or ten. I couldn’t connect with his driver, wood, long iron, or wedge, so I teed off with a 7-iron and then proceeded to putt my way up the fairway, twenty yards at a time. Hall of Fame-worthy, were I only an NFL running back. It was the only club with which I could make consistent contact.

Looking back, I am shocked that Grandpa didn’t walk us right back to the parking lot after we (finally) made it off the first green. He was patience personified. Maybe his long game, no pun intended, was one day sticking me with that putter forever. A mathematician by trade, a genealogist by curiosity, he has always loved riddles and puzzles and families and histories. Though we lived hours apart for most of my life, he has always been there when called upon, steady, precise, and calm – a putter disguised as a grandfather.

The club in my garage really wants us to know whence it came: the back of the face is stamped with “PING” and “KARSTEN MFG. CORP” and “KARSTEN–MADE IN U.S.A.” Karsten is Karsten Solheim, namesake of the Solheim Cup and founder of the golf club manufacturing company that became Ping. He is also a kindred spirit of my grandpa: both married women named Louise, and both achieved their greatest successes upon leaving New York for California.

Years later, I’ve grown to love the game that traumatized me on the first hole at Twin Lakes in Santa Barbara. Though my handicap remains astronomical, I appreciate both the sporting challenges of golf, and its more metaphysical value: the way it forces us to spend long, meandering hours outside; the way you compete against your friends, but really you are in this together against flora and physics; the way the game continues to prioritize patience and persistence despite the accelerations and short attention spans of the world around it. Golf is a balm for our times.

Perhaps my subconscious has kept Grandpa’s putter in its bag all this time to remind me that sports have connective, cross-generational power. Despite my initial distaste, Grandpa and I golfed together many more times in subsequent years. We watched tournaments together at his home, and though it has been years since he was on a course, he and I still discuss the sport whenever we see each other. We disagree on a number of things, but golf isn’t one of them. Perhaps his old putter reminds me that neither our deepest passions nor our closest relationships unfold in linear form. Rather, they undulate like a proper green.

Moreso, I think the putter reminds me of the special bond between grandparent and grandchild. Grandpa introduced to me the things he loved the most, as many grandparents do. Some stuff sticks, some doesn’t, but the rewards are high and the stakes are low: this is the first hole at Twin Lakes, not the 11th at Augusta. 

Sentiment abounds in our house these days. Our daughter was born in August, and being a first-time father has me thinking more about grandparents (and great-grandparents!) and the critical roles they play in what children grow to love, in who they become. My wife and I are so lucky in that our daughter will have grandparents on both sides who love her dearly, and who will bring their own passions to bear in her life: baby girl will grow up with books and boats and Broadway ballads, and she, like me, has a maternal grandfather who is an avid golfer and who is married to a Louise (it’s baby’s middle name, too). 

Our daughter will undoubtedly have good caddies aplenty, and a certain golf club in my garage taps into that message too. As a new parent, I feel a bit as if I’m staring down thousands of yards worth of shanks and sand traps and storms. Still, there’s one club you can’t play the game without, and I’ve got that one in the bag.  

RYAN ESHOFF is an educator, coach, and writer in the Bay Area. Outside of his grandfather, his heroes are Steph Curry, Stanley Tucci, and Mr. Keating from Dead Poets' Society.