CHAPTER 20

Rediscovering White Fang

MORE FAMILY TIME RANKED AT the top of the list of added benefits from leaving the coaching profession. In addition to the time I got to spend with Mary Gayle and our young children, moving back to Florida and being a businessman created more time for me to spend with Dad.

While I’d been away from Florida for thirteen years, I’d been back to my home state for recruiting visits on many occasions, particularly the Tampa Bay area, which ranked as a hotbed for football talent. Having recruited there allowed me to grow familiar with the Cigar City. I knew the area would be a great place to live. And living there turned out to be everything I had hoped it would be, particularly given the proximity to Dad.

Being able to observe Dad mellow with age brought me a warm feeling. As I’ve said, he had always preached about not sweating the small stuff. Even though that sounded nice, Dad in fact always did sweat the small stuff. All perfectionists do. I guess the older we get, the more we realize the small stuff isn’t as big as we made it out to be. Dad got in the habit of making a lot of visits to Tampa. My mother rarely accompanied him. She did not share his enthusiasm about driving or flying from Miami to Tampa, even though the distance isn’t great by either plane or car. She actually got sedentary the older she got, which made traveling more difficult for her and, therefore, curbed her enthusiasm to do so. Dad, on the other hand, would always be up for a trip.

Other than visits with the grandkids, golf would be the big magnet for both of us when Dad traveled to Tampa. He loved playing at the Avila Golf and Country Club, my home course in Tampa at the time.

Though Dad and I had not physically been together that much prior to my leaving the coaching profession, we’d been together a lot over the years in conversations, thoughts, and prayers. Many times, life’s struggles had brought us together through all the disappointments, the ups and the downs. He had always been there for me to serve as a sounding board or dispatch sound advice. During those times when I had been struggling, he often told me, “Son, you are behind a few, and ahead of most in this world!” To this day, I use this saying a lot. I think it helps me and others understand how good life in the United States is for us as compared to other places in the world.

During one of Dad’s trips to Tampa, we were sitting around my house, and the old Bull’s Eye putter caught his attention. He asked me where I’d gotten the putter. While I told him, he examined the putter, noticing flecks of white paint on the flange during his inspection. He vaguely remembered a story about Jack Nicklaus and the fact he had not been able to locate two of his famous putters, one of them being a Bull’s Eye known as “White Fang.” Through our conversation, the seed got planted that I might be in possession of one of Nicklaus’s prized missing putters.

I didn’t think too much about our conversation until I was invited to Steve Nicklaus’s 40th birthday party that had been scheduled to take place on April 12, 2003.

Traveling and coaching football for all those years after I got out of college didn’t help me stay close to many of my friends in college. That was more my fault than that of any of my friends. Steve and I frequently stayed in touch over the years, so I felt good to be included on his invite list for the memorable occasion.

Steve had worked for the LPGA Tour when he first graduated from FSU. Certain staff members always went ahead to the next Tour stop to help get things prepared. Steve had been a part of one of those teams. On one occasion, he had been at a stop in Hattiesberg, Mississippi, and he planned on driving to Baton Rouge on a Sunday to see me. That was, of course, to take place on April 13, 1986, which turned out to be the weekend Jack brought down the house at Augusta National. At the age of forty-six, Jack won The Masters, making him the oldest to ever win the hallowed tournament. Instead of stopping in Baton Rouge, Steve adjusted his plans to be with Jack on that magical weekend.

Once the invitation to Steve’s party arrived, I began to entertain the idea of bringing along the putter to the party to see what Jack thought of it. What sealed the deal was a business trip to Augusta with a title company to watch The Masters practice rounds at Augusta the week of Steve’s party.

During Tuesday’s practice round, Jack had just finished playing No. 17 and had started to make his way to No. 18 when I yelled out to him. He stopped, and we spoke briefly.

“Joe, what are you doing here?” he said.

I could feel all eyes on me, like, “Who the heck is this guy that Jack Nicklaus stopped to talk to in the middle of his practice round?”

I explained to him why I was there. Once he began to walk away, I said, “Jack, I hope I don’t see you this weekend.”

Initially, the remark seemed to catch him off guard. He quickly recovered, and he said, “Yeah I hope I don’t see you, either.”

If Jack made the cut for the weekend rounds of the tournament, he wouldn’t be able to attend Steve’s birthday party that Saturday night.

On my trip home from Augusta, I couldn’t get my mind off that Bull’s Eye putter. I don’t know what came over me, but my gut told me I needed to bring along the putter with me to South Florida for Steve’s party.

Fortunately for me, Jack missed the cut. That allowed him to attend the party.

When I saw him that Saturday night, I grinned and said, “I’m sorry to see that you’re here tonight.”

He smiled and agreed, though I’m sure he had mixed emotions. The consummate competitor living in him wanted to compete for another major title, while the consummate family man wanted to be around for a special family moment.

I introduced Mary Gayle to Jack. Everybody wanted to speak to Jack, which I’m sure brought a familiar scene. Talking to everybody and making everybody feel comfortable was just a part of who he was. He had begun to make his move to mingle with other party guests when I said, “Jack, I may have a club that might be yours!”

I had piqued his interest.

He said, “Well go get it, and we can talk about it.”

Mary Gayle needed to retrieve her purse from the car anyway, so she offered to get the putter. When she returned, she handed over the Bull’s Eye, which I passed along to Jack. Did this mysterious putter have an historical story?

Jack began to inspect the putter, examining every inch of the club from top to bottom. At one point, he closed his eyes and started moving the putter back and forth like a pendulum as if putting an imaginary ball. I began to wonder if he was reliving some great moment from the past that he might have had with this putter. His expression conveyed disbelief, like he couldn’t believe what he held in his hands.

“Where have you had this?” Jack asked me.

I told him I’d been moved many times to various coaching stops and that I’d bunched the putter with an old set of wooden-shafted clubs my dad had given me. “They’ve been sitting on a shelf.”

Jack smiled. “Do you know how much this is worth?”

I shrugged, offering a tentative laugh. “I have no idea. But by the sound of your voice, I would guess a couple hundred thousand?”

Jack didn’t hesitate with his response. “No. Times that by five. I won the 1967 U.S. Open at Baltusrol with this putter!”

I continued to stand with Jack for much of the evening. I observed when old friends stopped to talk to him. When they saw the putter, several remarked, “That’s White Fang, where did you get that?”

Even Barbara, Jack’s wife, said, “That’s White Fang. I used to spray-paint that in the parking lot!”

I learned that when needed, Barbara would spray-paint the head of the putter white to prevent the sun from reflecting off the putter, which might have been a distraction. Talk about the extra things a wife does for her husband!

The beat-up putter in his hands had matured to a worn shade of gold, yet it had a small speck of white paint clinging to the innermost portion of the hook flange in the back end. The grip proved to be the characteristic of the putter that confirmed without a doubt that Jack had been reunited with an old friend.

PGA Tour players could once alter the grips any way they wanted. Jack had stuck a pencil in the back of the putter grip, then tape-wrapped the handle and broke the pencil. To everyone’s surprise, now nearly forty years later, the pencil remained lodged in the back of the handle.

Jack glowed with White Fang in his hands. Finally, he turned to me with a childlike grin. “Well, can I have it?”

That made me smile. I’m thinking that the greatest golfer who has ever lived has just asked me if I would return a putter that had been his. I told him, “Of course, it’s yours, you can have it.”

The rest of the night was filled with taking pictures and enjoying the stories of Jack’s triumphs and disappointments using White Fang. Eventually, Jack turned to me and said, “Joe, send me your specs, and I’ll send you a set of clubs.”

To this day, I don’t know why or how I came up with my response. I do thank the Lord that I did. I looked at him and put my hand on his shoulder. “You’re not getting off that easy.”

He shot me a pensive look, and I continued, “You get Steve, and I’ll get my Dad. Let’s go to Augusta, and we will call it even.”

Jack turned to Steve and said, “Book it. Let’s go this fall.”

Thus, a dream father/son golf trip was scheduled for October 21, 2003.

What a fun night. I’ll never forget how happy Jack seemed to be. He later told writers about being reunited with White Fang: “It was Steve’s birthday that night, but I am the one who got the best present.”

Dad would have disagreed.

When I called Dad later that night, he couldn’t believe he would be playing Augusta National in October. Not to mention the fact that he would be playing with his son and The Golden Bear, the golfer who had won The Masters Tournament six times. And all because of a putter called “White Fang”!