When my husband and I first exchanged words, I was in a car full of bridesmaids, speeding down the interstate to New Orleans. He was in the home of one of his college teammates, nearly five thousand miles away, in Belgium, away to compete in a golf qualifying school for the European tour. This I knew already, as his name had been floated across my desk a few times, this trip he was on shared with me, this tournament already existing in my Google searches. I, strangely, desperately wanted to meet him, this stranger, desperately wanted him to play terrible golf and come home. I remember sitting at my kitchen table between classes, searching any combination of words I thought might help me find out how he was doing…his country club, his age, his name, his hometown. I found a list after one day of the tournament, and I’m not sure what I was expecting to learn, given I knew not one single thing about golf, not one single hint as to what the numbers meant, if he was doing well or not.
Of course, it all worked out in the end, my research unnecessary, because he came home and within a week of his flight landing, I’d met him and never needed to meet anyone else ever again.
Really, as I write snippets of our story down, I always am left in such awe that I ever considered knowing better than what the Lord had planned for me. The unraveling of His plan for me and Price lasted far longer than I was aware of at the time, but at the time, twenty-one years old and about to graduate college, all I knew was of this man was that I’d met his parents that summer for work and that he played golf, collegiately and a stint with professional status. The pictures I’d seen were pictures after golf tournaments, pictures on the course, little videos he’d made on hot summer days hitting the ball around, a bucket hat and these glasses I couldn’t quite figure out until I knew him.
In fact, the first person I asked about Price after hearing he was maybe interested in knowing me was the girlfriend of an old teammate from his days playing golf for the university across the street from mine. I was seeing him first through the lens of golf, of loyal teammates, of a game of patience and hard work and talent.
We started dating in October, spending every Friday night together from then on. In December, I went with him to his family’s home, spending the day touring this little town I hadn’t known existed before him, flipping through yearbooks, smiling at baby pictures on the wall. That afternoon, he showed me where he hit golf balls in the attic, a huge net set up amongst boxes and antique furniture, a pile of golf clubs in the corner. As I took a step on the green, Price came up behind me, a short club with a pink grip in hand. This is for you.
I drove home that night with butterflies in the bottom of my stomach, chill bumps on my arms, this thought, this conviction that I had finally met him, this boy who went to school across the street, who lived down the road, who sawed a golf club to fit my height, my husband soon enough.
That next summer, I’d given up on my ability to play golf, but he let me ride in the cart and read, “Caddy Addy” as we said. We took our engagement pictures on a golf course next to the river, right as the leaves began to fall red and orange. The night before our wedding, ninety of our family and friends gathered on the porch of the course in the town I grew up in, the town he played college golf in, and listened to stories and prayers as the sun went down. The air was cool and sweet, my cheeks wet with tears, my hands in his.
A few months into our marriage, it was an opportunity with golf that brought us back to my hometown, brought us to our tiny, precious home. The opportunity didn’t pan out, but it still had existed at the right time, just in time to save me from my job, from my loneliness, from feeling so, so very lost. Golf brought me home.
A few summers later, I woke up one Tuesday morning and felt as hopeful as I had felt for months as I unwrapped a pregnancy test, waited with it face down on the bathroom counter, screamed when I saw two lines and told Annie first. That weekend, Price took me to my first golf tournament to watch him play, where I got to ride in the cart with him, his name and “Past Champion” printed on the front. I sent updates to his parents as the weekend went on, birdie on five, par on eight. I had no idea what I was talking about, and they had no idea I was pregnant. We laughed the entire weekend at this monumental secret we were holding, this baby in the cart with us.
Then our baby girl was born eight months later, beautiful and perfect and precious. We got home past midnight that next night, after a late discharge and stand still traffic. That next morning, I woke up alone in our bed, teary and exhausted. I wandered out to the library, where I heard the familiar sound of the golf channel, the background to my sweetest Saturday afternoon pregnancy naps, the deepest of sleep on top of our comforter, nestled onto Price’s shoulder and Annie in the crook of my legs, close enough to feel Kit kick. That weekend was the Player’s Tournament, the weekend I learned the difference between Scheffler and Schauffele, the very first time I paid attention to what was happening, as I curled myself into our library chair with my Kit and my Annie, crying and sleeping all weekend.
Price went back to work on Monday. That morning, he sat on the edge of the bed as I held Kit with tears streaming down my face, feeling so, so very scared of being alone. I remember telling him how precious this weekend had been, watching golf with him. And he told me that’s the beauty of this sport…we’ll do it all again this weekend, the Valspar in Florida. He left, and we moseyed around, making coffee and opening windows, turning on the golf channel and missing Price.
At night, I watched Full Swing on low as Kit slept beside me. I asked Price every question that crossed my mind, trying to learn what players he liked, how the PGA worked, what was a good shot and what wasn’t. He took off for the Masters, and his mom sent us a package of pimento cheese, official plastic cups, moon pies, table settings from Augusta. We spent every morning in our library, the room sunny and consumed with the smell of baby and hot coffee. Price and I had a fantasy league on the Masters app, running commentary all day as we checked scores.
And by the end of it all, watching Scottie and his green jacket, hearing my husband’s stories of watching as a child, recording Tiger’s wins on VHS, I was in love with knowing golf, knowing this part of my husband’s life. I love that when we think about Kit’s first year of life, memories will be measured in the timeline of golf tournaments, trips to the course laced in and out. One of my favorite memories of her first summer was waking up before the sun, rocking her until I saw light. Price was still asleep, and I went to check my phone before changing for an early morning walk, before the sun burned hot and the air thickened, when I saw the most unbelievable news of Scottie’s arrest at the PGA Championship. I fell back into our bed, shaking Price awake. You will never believe this! He walked with us that morning, slowly so he could scroll through Twitter and we could laugh at the mugshot, at the jokes, at the absolute absurdity of the entire thing. I remember thinking to myself, pushing the stroller back to our house, how thankful I was to be able to share this with him, to understand the jokes, to talk about another aspect of life together, no matter how silly. We made muffins and coffee and stood in front of the TV as Scottie returned to the course, silently making his way to the range.
This year, watching the Masters felt like a holiday, a weekend we’d been talking about for a year. We celebrated with BBQ sandwiches and azaleas, with homemade and absolutely divine moon pies from his mom, with chicken salad and lemonade for lunch, with morning walks in between tee times, with Augusta shirts for all three of us to wear. And I felt strangely proud of my ability to watch the entire tournament, my ability to name as many players as I could on the screen, my understanding of the game.
But mostly, of this little string of a sport I knew nothing about, of my life all tied up with it. My club with the pink grip in the trunk of my car. My home filled with copies of the Golf Journal, my walls with pictures of golf courses, of Kit on the green in a bucket hat. The sound of my husband hitting balls into a net in the shed. This incredible love of a sport I can’t play, but my husband can.