A toast to an old friend  PGATOUR.com Contributor I would like to propose a toast to an old friend. The FBR Open seems like the appropriate week for such an occasion. We don't stand on tradition here. You don't have to wait until I am finished with the toast to take a sip. As a matter of fact, sips at any time are encouraged. If you were lucky enough to play the Nationwide Tour or the PGA TOUR in the 1990s then you probably know Garland Dempsey. He caddied on TOUR for more than a decade. Heck, he probably owes you a little money. If you were among the fortunate ones who got to know Garland, then you know that he is an intelligent and complex man. Furthermore, he is a hell of a lot of fun. I can tell you that when he reads this he is going to be mad at me for writing it. He will forgive me, though. He has forgiven me far greater transgressions, and I have returned the favor. Like all of us, Garland has found himself in some tough spots throughout his life -- from the two tours of duty that he served his country in Vietnam to the hospital room he woke up in a few years ago in Chicago. You may remember Garland if you were watching the Western Open back in 1999. Caddying for me on a brutally hot Saturday in the third to last group, Garland had a heart attack. Play was stopped for 45 minutes as fans and then paramedics worked on Garland to revive him. We were told that he had been without oxygen for too long and would probably never fully recover. A few days later bypass surgery was performed and the prognosis was the same. That was in July -- Garland resumed caddying for me the last four events of the year. The following week the TOUR invoked the unofficially named "Garland Rule" and caddies were allowed to wear shorts. Just to prove that the world is round, Garland landed a job shortly after the 1999 season selling portable defibrulators in Texas. After all, he was on the brochure. Ironically, the times that I cherish most with Garland weren't even the times that he was caddying for me. When I was a young punk playing the Nationwide Tour in the early '90s, Garland and I would travel from tournament to tournament in my little Honda Civic. We must have been quite a pair traveling down the road, jabbering away. The perspective that I learned through the conversations on those drives is something that I have always carried with me. Golf was occasionally discussed but mostly we kept to headier issues like politics and philosophy. Well, OK, we talked about women a lot, too. During those years, Garland caddied for Sean Murphy and Tommy Armour III. If such records were kept there is a pretty good chance that Garland has more wins on the Nationwide Tour than any other caddy. Tonight, though. Garland is in another hospital bed. He has cancer. The situation is serious, but being the bull-headed man that he is, Garland isn't listening. If there is anyone who can fight his way back it is Garland. There is a line in The Great Gatsby that loosely quoted says, "let us honor a man when he is living for after he is gone it is too late." If you happened to know Garland raise a glass to him tonight, as I am. He would like that. Copyright 2007 PGATOUR.com. All rights reserved. |
