The course was right there, shining green through the early-morning haze like a scene from ESPN Films. But the first tee and my buddies, John and Lang, were nowhere in sight. I hadn’t played 18 holes since I was a teenager. Lang plays nearly every week. John plays a little less than that. But none of us are scratch golfers. We’re improving. When I finally wheeled in the parking lot, it all made sense.
This was the first day of play at the Links at Audubon, a highly anticipated day more than a year in the making. But this was early days still and it wasn’t all figured out yet. There was no clubhouse. No pro shop. There was, however, a construction trailer and another trailer for bathrooms. A handful of golfers changed shoes and futzed with golf bags near cars on a shiny new slab of night-sky blacktop. I found John and Lang there.
Beyond that parking lot, an unfinished chainlink corral, and past construction workers hurrying here and there, the brand new Links at Audubon Park shimmered again through the haze and ESPN Films music swelled in my head.
The course closed in November 2022 for a complete overhaul that cost between $8 million and $9 million, depending on what you read. I was not a golfer when the project began. But I was a reporter.
Near hole 12 of the Links at Audubon (Photo: Toby Sells)
At the time, I thought, “$8 million for another public golf course here?” It sounded absurd. I scoffed when Memphis City Council members Chase Carlisle and Ford Canale, who helped to rework the original plan, said they did it to give more green space for the “non-golfing public.” The golfing public is likely 5 percent (or less) of the total Memphis population, I thought. Why spend so much on them?
Then, the bug bit. I started playing Overton Park 9 in November and haven’t been able to stop. Maybe I still don’t understand why the city spends so much on golf but I can say Memphis courses offer an astonishing array of experiences here. But I turned my mind off to all of that on the first tee and drank it in.
The low green rises, the gentle swales, the steeply sloped greens were manicured to a Mario World precision; squint and you could wonder if it wasn’t all rendered in perfect pixels. A mowed line cut along the fringe of the fairway made it look inset, premium. Long, silver grasses swayed and the bough of old hardwoods hushed in the morning breeze.
We swayed, to yacht rock. We always do when John’s in the group. The music is at a tastefully volume — just loud enough to be heard in the cart — and it’s the perfect soundtrack to the activity. It straddles some line between irony and entertainment, much like my take on golf itself. I’m no country club guy, but here I am, having fun.
That’s something I’ve learned on Memphis golf courses. Nobody’s going to run you down because you’re not an ace shooter. They’ll support the heck out of you. Our day at Audubon was punctuated with a murmured “g’shot,” or a loud “hell yeah,” or “nice” when were weren’t verbally coaxing balls to keep running or stop running.
Photo: Toby Sells
That’s what golf is all about. That’s what friendship and support is all about. You don’t have to be great to have fun. And I learned that on those Memphis golf courses. I certainly hope (and do think) there’s a Memphis Parks experience out there for everyone in town, to hopefully have that thing I found on our golf courses.
For decades to come, Audubon will remain a place we can all laugh at our own mistakes and continue to believe our next shot will be great, to believe in the future.
Anthony Dionne, James A. Edwards, and Father Joe Sax (Photos: Michael Donahue)
This year’s 66th Hole-in-One Charity Festival at St. Louis Catholic Church drew “well over 10,000, but maybe pushing 15,000,” says Wes Kraker, who’s been involved with Hole-in-One for more than 20 years.
June 21st and 22nd drew at least 2,500 people each night, Kraker says.
Taylor and Patrick Quinn, Chris MurrayAndrew MostellerCaden Robinson and Emma Roaten
This is the annual St. Louis fundraiser that begins on Father’s Day and ends six days later.
As Kraker explained to me last year, “We transform the campus at St. Louis Church into a 37-tee-box range. And we give out cash and prizes for good golfers for getting holes-in-one or close to the hole. Certain qualifiers shoot out for a car from City Auto. And we accumulate points for performers all week. And those top 10 performers shoot out for a million dollars on Saturday.”
Evan Winburne and Julia DiGeronimoJon Shivers, Corderoa Smith, and Patrick ShiversJoseph Tidwell, Cory Human, and Cole Tidwell
The St. Louis Men’s Club puts on the event. Proceeds go to St. Louis Church sports, scouting, and youth ministry programs.
The “St. Louis Men’s Club Culinary Institute” makes outstanding food, including barbecued bologna.
There’s a whole new Memphis out there. It waits for you just outside your everyday routine, somewhere just a few streets away from those four or five places that comprise a personal rut you might not know even exists.
Routines are fine; humans thrive on them. But their comfort can shield you from having a bigger, fuller Memphis experience. For example, if you’ve ever talked with your bartender about the new-colored urinal cakes at your favorite watering hole’s de-watering hole, it might be time to try that new place you heard about at work.
Memphis is a big place with something for just about anyone. This year (in lieu of piling on with New Year’s health tips and habit breakers), we want to help you — encourage you — to go out and rediscover this amazing city we call home.
Our writers did just that. They opened their eyes a bit wider, went hunting Memphis (and sometimes beyond) for that niche thing they love, tuned into that vibration here, discovered that whole new Memphis, and will carry it with them into 2023. — Toby Sells
Photo: Priscilla DuPreez | Unsplash
Disc Golfin’
College was the last time I laid hands on a disc golf disc. I only bought some discs back then because my buddy was crazy about the sport, he wanted me to go with him, and I wanted to drink beers outside.
I thought it was silly. Grown men throwing Frisbees into a basket. Frrrp. Please. And I was scolded for calling it a “Frisbee” (some copyright dispute, I was told) and for “not taking it seriously.” Well, I played a few times that one summer, drank some beers, quit when I lost two discs ($20!) in a pond, and relegated my other discs to a box in the attic.
Many, many years later, I found myself at a park with a disc golf course last fall in Roanoke, Virginia. I saw folks throwing and it looked more fun than scrolling Reddit while my kids hit the playground. I approached a player, curious to know if I could buy discs somewhere close. The guy opened his bag, pulled out two discs, handed them to me, and said, “It’s a fun game. You should play.”
Of course I told him I couldn’t take them, but he insisted and walked away before I could protest any further. I was and remain gobsmacked. My family and I played, and the afternoon sparkled with this brand-new way to spend time together. Thank you, kind stranger. Sincerely.
Back in Memphis, I immediately dug my old discs out of the attic and started digging on the internet. I was so happy to find that the city is rich with great courses, all of them just waiting for me to explore.
The sport has taken me off my beaten path (work, home, Boscos, Memphis Made) to Kennedy Park in Raleigh, Sea Isle, down in the hollers at the Shelby Forest, Shelby Farms, and to the All Veterans Golfplex tucked away off Airways surrounded by warehouses and factories. It has shown me around a town I’ve lived in for nearly 15 years.
Disc golf has become my cardio, my mental health medicine, my vitamin D source, my cure for doom-scrolling, and my outlet to beat the winter blues. It’s given me a reason to connect more with my buddy from college and to even shop at Outdoors Inc.
Disc golf hasn’t changed my life, but it has made changes to my life. They’re good changes, too, including the way I see and enjoy my city. — TS
M-Town Market (Photo: M-Town Market)
Shopping at M-Town Market
I listen to a lot of old music. We can blame it on my Glee obsession, but you’ll likely hear me listening to Elton John’s take on “Pinball Wizard” on repeat in my car while wearing a shirt featuring the Rocket Man himself (bought brand-new from Urban Outfitters).
Graphic tees have long been a staple in my wardrobe, and while I can usually find what I am looking for online, these are often pieces manufactured this year, which lack the authenticity and nostalgia that make the item worth loving. I had long been a fan of thrift store finds such as Gilmore Girls box sets and old books, but I never had luck finding any cool and curated pieces. However, it turns out that I was just looking in the wrong places. Instead of focusing on big-name thrift stores, I learned that I could shift my focus to local vintage accounts on Instagram.
I found Grind City Vintage on Instagram, late in 2022. The store specializes in vintage clothing and shoes, and uses Instagram and Instagram stories as a way to conduct business. While Grind City Vintage is a business of its own, the owner, Jay Williams, also operates the M-Town Market with Studio 901. The market is hosted at least four times a year by 20-50 vendors, and shoppers can find vintage shoes and clothing.
“Our focus is vintage sneakers, and fashion as well,” said Williams. “Streetwear, stuff like that where it’s a lot of dope brands and local vendors that have done really well at our events but also have their own following.”
Williams also said that he and his team pride themselves on giving local vendors and brands an opportunity to put their brand out there, which he said makes them stand out from other markets. — Kailynn Johnson
Put on Your Pointe Shoes
I took my first ballet class this September — well, not my first ballet class ever. I dabbled in the art form when I was a wee one, before I could tie my own shoelaces or knew how to carry the one when adding big numbers. I also retired from the art form when I was a wee one. (At that point, I could tie my shoelaces and add big numbers.) I couldn’t tell you why I stopped going to class; I just did. I also couldn’t tell you what made me sign up for a beginners’ class this September at Ballet Memphis; I just did. Was it a need to relive my former glory days? A need to move my ever-sedentary body? A need simply to leave the house? All of the above?
Regardless, I went, seemingly just because, sans leotard or tights or ballet shoes, and danced in my socks. And I went back, week after week, in socks. I learned pique and rond de jambe (which I thought was spelled Ron de Jon until now) and tendu (which I’ve been mispronouncing “fondue” in my mind), and surprisingly, I’m nowhere near being en pointe. I kid, I kid; there’s not a chance in this lifetime that I’ll ever be en pointe, but for someone who’s a teensy bit of a perfectionist, being bad or, even worse, mediocre at something is a bit outside of my comfort zone. And boy, oh boy, is it freeing just to have that permission not to be good, to try and to fail, to feel a bit silly. It’s fun and challenging, physically and mentally, and every now and then, I get to feel like a graceful ballerina, and who doesn’t want to feel like a graceful ballerina, just because? — Abigail Morici
Never Too Late to Take a Swing at It
Decades ago — just how many I’m almost ashamed to say — I invested a not inconsiderable portion of a payday in the purchase of a brand-new set of golf clubs: all the irons and woods that one should have, plus a nice leather bag to carry them in. At the time, I had played just enough golf to think that if I ever learned to hit a ball off the ground cleanly, with either iron or wood, I might be halfway good. (I could drive off a tee fairly well.) Beginning at the age of 13, I had played only sporadically over the years, and I assumed that, armed with my new tools, I’d be out on the links fairly often.
For shame! I have never used those clubs, never played another round. The bag, burgeoning with all those shiny, still gleaming implements, has sat in various closets and garages ever since. The bag and clubs have functioned as an ornament of sorts, an aide to wishful thinking about what I still resolved to get out there some day and do.
Twice recently I have called up my friend and former Arkansas Gazette colleague Ernest Dumas over in Little Rock and been informed by his wife Elaine that he was out playing golf. I’ve been around a while, but Dumas is even older. He’s pushing 90, in fact, and when I finally got him on the phone, he informed me that his goal, which he’s managed to achieve once or twice, has been to shoot his age.
Basically, he took up the game upon retirement, and it now fills a fair share of his days. As a sport, golf is famously short on kinetics but long on fresh air and, even if one uses a cart, walking.
As it happens, I was in the hospital for a spell of late, and fresh air and walking would both serve as admirable therapeutics as I seek to regain at least a facsimile of my erstwhile energy and stamina. New year? New me? In a word: Fore! — Jackson Baker
Before his travels, Chris McCoy visits Tommy Kha’s banned self-portrait as Elvis at theMemphis International Airport. (Photo: Laura Jean Hocking)
Get Out!
Remember back in the dark days of 2020, when you were stuck inside your place while diseases ravaged the land? You vowed that, when all this is over, you would visit all the places that you wanted to go, but couldn’t. Well guess what? Now is the time to make good on that vow. Covid is still around, but you’re all vaxxed up and, when necessary, masked up. Gas prices have fallen from their Ukraine War peak. Amtrak just got a big funding boost. And the Memphis International Airport has that new terminal smell. (Don’t forget to take a selfie with Tommy Kha’s banned self-portrait as Elvis.) It’s time to get out of town, if only for a little while.
One of the great things about Memphis is its location in the middle of the continent. A day’s drive can get you to the Great Lakes, the Gulf Coast, Dollywood, or Dallas. Go on a hike at Dismals Canyon in Alabama. Swim and ski on Lake Ouachita in Arkansas. Shop Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. Visit the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.
Go to a New Orleans Saints game in the Superdome. Follow Taylor Swift’s concert tour. Go where you want to go. Stay as long as you can. Have fun. Expand your consciousness. You’ll find things you love about your destination, and things you miss about Memphis. As the old saying goes, it is only through travel that you come to know your home for the first time. — Chris McCoy
MonoNeon, master of many sounds (Photo: Fender)
Contain Multitudes, Music Lovers!
If any sector in Memphis is prone to trap people in self-imposed silos, it’s the music community. Perhaps it’s because we internalize music so deeply that our very identity becomes bound up in it. “And now you find you fit this identikit completely,” sang Elvis Costello many decades ago, and that concept rings true today, as we embrace our respective identikits in dance clubs or concert halls. And that’s fine, as far as it goes; we all need to find our tribe, our people. But don’t sleep on the city’s musical diversity while you’re doing so. Stepping outside of your comfort zone might just be the wake-up call you needed.
Meanwhile, plenty of music creators have been breaking down the boundaries for some time now. Blueshift Ensemble, classical players from the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, have collaborated with artists as diverse as Don Lifted and Mark Edgar Stuart. Recent supergroup Salo Pallini specializes in what they call “Progressive Latin Space Country” on their upcoming album. Al Kapone is forging a new path that combines rap with heavy, heavy blues. The Unapologetic collective, who take pride in their offbeat hip-hop, are just as proud of this year’s Nobody Really Makes Love Anymore by Aaron James, a straight-up emo tour de force. And then there’s MonoNeon, master of funk, jazz, gospel, indie rock … and the kitchen-sink sounds of George Clinton.
As Cory Branan recently told Glide Magazine, “Why limit myself to a certain genre? Whatever a song wants to wear is fine with me.” Maybe fans just need to catch up with the performers. “If I had to stand there and play acoustic singer-songwriter music all the time,” says Branan, “I’d be bored out of my mind.” — Alex Greene
Get hustled at Nerd Alert’s arcade. (Photo: Michael Donahue)
Game Somewhere Else!
Rather than slide into the mind-numbing antics of reality TV or the thinking-person’s prestige series, my preferred method of unwinding after work is to toss down my coat and briefcase and fire up the ol’ Switch, PS5, or PC, and enjoy my evening as anonymous online 13-year-olds scream obscenities into voice chat and teabag my digital avatar’s lifeless, pixelated corpse.
It’s all in good fun, but despite advanced technology that allows players to connect with others from all over the world, gaming — whether it be board, card, or video — is always more fun playing in person. After all, if you can’t look into your friend’s eyes as you crush them piece by piece, and watch as their joy and enthusiasm slowly tilt toward shock, exasperation, and, most sweetly, utter dejection, then what’s the point? Luckily, if you know where to look, there are ready-made communities of gaming aficionados that will help you break out of the hobby’s somewhat solitary shell.
My favorite “discovery” has been Board to Beers, an elusive setup that convinces me to travel beyond the East Parkway line for a social call. Memphis’ first board game bar is a delight, home to owner Taylor Herndon’s collection of 400+ eclectic board games, some of which will leave players both entertained and scratching their heads. We tried out one fan-operated game that involved plucking sushi ingredients out of the air with chopsticks. Another, called Icecool, involved flicking penguins around a little board. That fact that you can curve and jump the penguins led to many out-of-board shenanigans, and some throbbing fingernails.
On the digital side of things, I flock to Nerd Alert in Cooper-Young, where I can almost guarantee some hustler is sitting on the Street Fighter II machine, waiting to grind me into dust before I can even get a hit in, and delivering a beatdown so bad that it feels like I’m actually getting kicked in the face by Chun-Li. But on a friendlier note, there’s always some rando available to help you tag-team the original Mario Bros. and rack up a high score. I may never get their name, but for one night, anyone can make a new friend.
And, of course, a shout-out to Black Lodge, which has its own board game rental plan and plenty of other competitive programming like the armored fight club. (That’s out of the question for me, but it sure is fun to watch.) Gaming doesn’t always have to be a solitary endeavor; in fact, there are plenty of places around town that will welcome new players with open arms. — Samuel X. Cicci
Say Thank You. To Everyone
Not a day shall pass this year without my offering up a heartfelt thank you. I say thanks to scads of people all the time, but it’s often perfunctory, sometimes begrudged, occasionally sarcastic. I’m perfectly happy to maintain my current level of loving snideness, but I find myself now — running heedlessly into 2023 — to be in great need of snark-free gestures.
Just as one utters grace before meals (for those who still perform that quaint ritual), I’m thinking how fulfilling it would be to take a few moments during the day to shine a light when Providence smiles.
Of course, it requires some real thought. It’s never worked for me to make a list a couple of days before Thanksgiving of the nice people and good fortune I’ve encountered. I’m too busy with preparations for holiday stuff and stuffing to add in a few dollops of gratitude for a year’s worth of good deeds.
How much better, then, to make it part of the quotidian routine along with eating, cleaning, meditating, exercising … well, I guess I can target those last two items for future resolutions.
Anyway, my intention will be to think well and truly of the people and institutions and energy going on all about and give them recognition. My list, which was too much ignored over Turkey Day, includes, for example, kudos to the artists who have made Concourse B at MEM a splendid gallery, and to the UrbanArt Commission that wrangled the project. In fact, just in the area of fine arts alone, we can have gratitude for what’s being done at Crosstown Concourse, the Metal Museum, the Dixon Gallery & Gardens, the Brooks (present and future), and in Orange Mound.
We live in a place that deserves all manner of thanks and respect. Great water, thrilling sports, sublime music, perfect water, natural wonders, caring people … well, you get the idea. And amen. — Jon W. Sparks
The new entertainment facility will feature bowling, golf, video games, and more.
Liberty Park, the yet-to-be-built youth sports complex at the Mid-South Fairgrounds, is slated to get an entertainment facility with a bowling alley, laser tag arena, golf simulators, ropes courses, escape rooms, and ax throwing.
News of the new project came Monday evening as Liberty Park officials announced they signed a consultant for the project. The consultants said they signed a letter of intent with the entertainment group that will build the entertainment facility.
Project leaders said Monday they hired Bender-Carey Group as consultants on Liberty Park to identify and secure additional development partners and funding sources for the project. That group then announced it executed a letter of intent with High 5 Entertainment to join the Liberty Park campus.
“We’re thrilled to bring opportunities to Memphis and sell the narrative of Liberty Park alongside this impressive team,” said Bender-Carey group president and CEO Kristie Bender-Carey. “It’s an ideal opportunity zone funding situation, and we are having very fruitful conversations with interested parties as a result.” High 5
The new entertainment facility will feature bowling, golf, video games, and more.
High 5, the entertainment company, is planning a 65,000-square-foot facility. It will feature a two-story, 40,000-square-foot indoor space and a 25,000-square-foot outdoor miniature golf course. It will also feature a virtual reality and video game arcade, a full-service restaurant, and bars.
“When we learned about Liberty Park and the synergy of all that’s there and on the way — from sports to the Children’s Museum, neighboring college campuses and Liberty Bowl football games — we easily concluded that Liberty Park is the ideal spot in the community to bring the joy and excitement of High 5,” said High 5 founder Scott Emley. “We know the City of Memphis has worked very hard to assemble a great program for everyone living in or visiting Memphis, and we at High 5 are humbled and excited at the opportunity to join the program.”
Construction of the entertainment facility is scheduled to begin in early 2021. Officials hope the facility will be open in time for the 2022 holiday season. High 5
The new entertainment facility will feature bowling, golf, video games, and more.
I went to bed angry Sunday night for the first time in months. Truly pissed off. Having waited more than four months to see my hockey team of choice — the Stanley Cup-champion St. Louis Blues — play a meaningful game, I watched them lose their opening playoff tilt by the narrowest margin possible in a timed contest. The Colorado Avalanche scored the game winner with a tenth of a second on the clock, and it took almost 10 minutes of video review to confirm that tenth of a second existed. Infuriating, that ice hockey game played in August.
And damn, did the anger feel good. Larry Kuzniewski
Ja Morant
For the first time since the novel coronavirus changed our planet — at least that part occupied by the United States — in mid-March, we have a packed sports calendar. The NBA has resumed its season with 22 teams each playing eight “seeding games” in Orlando, a one-city “bubble” designed and operated to contain that insidious virus and still provide televised basketball at its highest level.
Likewise, the NHL has opened its postseason with two bubble cities, both north of our border: Edmonton and Toronto. If you like sticks and pucks, you can turn on the NBC Sports network today — a Monday in August – and watch live playoff hockey for more than 12 hours, a total of six games to be played (starting with the New York Rangers and Carolina Hurricanes at 11 a.m. central). This is a new, if disorienting, form of bliss.
Major League Baseball is trying, too. Instead of localized, condensed play within one or two bubbles, MLB is trying to coordinate 30 mobile bubbles — one for each team — and present a 60-game regular season followed by an expanded postseason. And it’s not working entirely, not if you ask the Miami Marlins or St. Louis Cardinals. The two National League franchises have each been locked down after virus outbreaks, quarantined in hotels while rapid testing measures just how many players or staff in traveling parties of more than 50 carry the contagion. And let me tell you, the only thing worse than no pandemic baseball is pandemic baseball with your favorite team not allowed to play. It’s waking up on Christmas morning with gifts under the tree . . . for everyone but you.
It still feels good. For more than 100 days, sports fans have pined for the “welcome distraction” of games and scores to track. Well, guess what? Some of that distraction isn’t welcome in normal circumstances: a blown lead, a narrow loss, a game-changing call that goes against your team. It purely stinks. And it lingers. In all the right ways.
The Memphis Grizzlies lost their first two of eight seeding games as they cling to the final (eighth) playoff spot in the Western Conference. They lost to a pair of teams — Portland and San Antonio — below them in the standings, teams unlikely to catch Memphis for a postseason berth . . . unless the Griz allow them. Ja Morant and Jaren Jackson Jr. are as electric as any young tandem in the league, and they both had moments over the weekend, Jackson burying a late-game three-pointer against the Spurs that forced overtime . . . until it didn’t (thanks to a buzzer-beating foul that led to game-winning free throws for the bad guys). What if we’ve waited all this time to see our Grizzlies, and the “show” becomes a bubbled-season collapse into the draft lottery? (Memphis plays New Orleans Monday, then will face five playoff teams. Should the Grizzlies make the postseason, they will have earned it.)
More than 1,000 Americans are dying each day from COVID-19. The U.S. president, here in August, is calling into question the very lifeblood of democracy: our voting system. Children and teachers from coast to coast are wondering if they’ll become the lab rats for a “return to normal” no one feels comfortable defining. Times are still really, really tough. But we have sports again, at least a version. Justin Thomas is now a Memphian for life, his win in the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational highlighting the beautiful TPC Southwind — and countless tributes to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital — for a national TV audience, including the thousands of Memphis fans forced to watch from their living rooms. It felt good, and it felt right, watching Thomas barely hold off defending champ Brooks Koepka.
And even when sports don’t feel right — when the game-winning goal is scored by a villain — it still feels good. Let’s stay healthy, and let’s play on.
CREDIT: Facebook/St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
The golf is back on the green with social distancing measures in place for golf fans everywhere.
Originally scheduled for July 2nd-5th, in April it was announced that the World Golf Championships FedEx St. Jude invitational would be rescheduled for the week formerly occupied by the Summer Olympics, which have been postponed to 2021.
Facebook/St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
“I know the Memphis community is looking forward to hosting another FedEx St. Jude Invitational event,” says Executive Director Darrell Smith. “We will continue to work with the PGA TOUR and the recommendations and regulations of leading public health authorities as we go forward to ensure the well-being for all.”
What ultimately manifested is an Invitational without spectators. However, the opportunities to explore Memphis and enjoy the sport are still in play, albeit a bit different. For instance, the PGA website offers a spectator guide so that golf enthusiasts can follow easily on the green. In addition to tournament information the website has an Explore Memphis link where virtual spectators can “Discover Memphis,” order barbecue for home delivery via The Pit @ Home, and a Kids Zone link with entertaining and educational opportunities for the younger spectators.
In addition to enjoying golf, there are some fun opportunities to benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. To participate in Birdies for St. Jude, sign up on the website birdiesforstjude.org, follow your favorite golfers, and donate for every birdie they card. Visitors can also find some fun items like shoes, putter covers, and bibs featuring St. Jude patient art in the Spectator Guide.
TPC Southwind, 3325 Club, wgcfedex.com. Visit website for PGA Tour App and schedule of events. Spectators can follow on social media from July 30th-August 2nd.
Check out these shots from last Saturday posted by the Overton Park Conservancy. I think they put to rest the myth that the battle for the park is somehow an elitist struggle being conducted by “well-to-do Midtowners with too much time on their hands.”
Buddy McEwen finished his final round at 67, which is five under par at his beloved Davy Crockett. There are a lot of us who wish his score could have been much higher.
McEwen died at 67 last week, after a four-year battle with throat cancer. He was a beautiful man, full of humor, spirit, and sass. I first met him in the early 1990s, when I began playing at Davy Crockett. He was the genial pro, more of a host, really. He’d greet you, chat you up about your life, the Tigers, your golf game, and sell you some used balls …
Buddy McEwen finished his final round at 67, which is five under par at his beloved Davy Crockett. There are a lot of us who wish his score could have been much higher.
McEwen died at 67 last week, after a four-year battle with throat cancer. He was a beautiful man, full of humor, spirit, and sass. I first met him in the early 1990s, when I began playing at Davy Crockett. He was the genial pro, more of a host, really. He’d greet you, chat you up about your life, the Tigers, your golf game, and sell you some used balls.
He loved Davy Crockett, a city course in deepest Frayser. He always said — rightly in my opinion — that it was the most beautiful layout in town, with its precipitous hills and thick forests and swampy lowlands. It just needed money and attention. Mostly money.
Buddy was a community activist. He organized golf programs for the impoverished kids who lived in the area. He held benefit tournaments for the Memphis Police Department. And when the city proposed to shut down Davy Crockett a few years back, he fought fiercely — and successfully — to save it.
Two years ago, some friends organized a tournament to raise funds for Buddy’s medical expenses. Nearly 200 people showed up, so many that Buddy couldn’t get everyone in the picture he wanted to take. His voice was cracked, and he was thin, but his laugh is what I remember most, as he kept backing up farther and farther. All of us — black, white, working stiffs, white-collar execs, cops — kept squeezing together, trying to fit in Buddy’s picture.
If you live a big life, you need a wide lens.
In recent weeks, some of us began receiving e-mails from Buddy’s brother Tommy in Nashville, with whom Buddy lived during the last months of his life. The subject line of last Friday’s e-mail read: “Buddy is playing golf in heaven.”
The next day, my friend John Ryan and I went out to Davy Crocket to play. It was unseasonably warm. The leaves hung gold and red along the fairways under a bright December sky. The clubhouse seemed very empty.
A thought occurred: Davy Crockett couldn’t play golf worth a damn. They ought to change the name of this place. “The Links at Buddy McEwen” has a nice ring to it.
Finally, some sweet relief for those of us still reeling from the death of Norman Mailer.
Golfer John Daly is back with his second book, Golf My Own Damn Way: A Real Guy’s Guide to Chopping 10 Strokes Off Your Score. In this masterpiece, Daly not only gives helpful golfing tips (“let your belly lead your hands, keep your head out of the game”), he also ponders what a better world it would be if the PGA would just lighten up by letting him “wear his hair down to his butt if he wants to” and “quit disqualifying him for having a bottle of Jack Daniels in his bag.”
Grab a copy of Daly’s book here just in time for the naughty duffer on your Christmas list.
High 5 
High 5 
High 5 
Larry Kuzniewski 
Facebook/St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital 