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While we wait for the #Masters rain delay to end, I have a little story about this photo I've never shared. (1/13)
In 2018, I got the chance to go to The Masters with Mercedes on a press trip, and they agreed at my request to let me bring my dad along for the ride. My plan was to write a story about Dad and I, after decades of fantasizing about it, finally getting to Augusta.
I published that story on Father's Day that year. The lead image is of dad and I standing behind the 17th green watching @PReedGolf, the eventual green jacket winner, hit a pitch shot. It was probably the best weekend of my life. https://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/a21290300/fathers-day-masters-tournament/
After we got home, my dad relentlessly scoured the internet to see if we were in any photos. He eventually came across this one on Getty, and sent me an email excited that he actually found one—a great one—but sadly it would cost $500. I had an account through work, though.
I sent the photo to dad, saved it on my phone, and have cherished it every day since. Dad and I kept talking about the weekend, we still do just about every week. He lives in Dallas and I've only seen him a couple of times since he moved. We cling to this memory.
A few months later, in August, I got a delivery at my desk. The package was huge, maybe 3-4 feet tall, wrapped in brown paper. I opened it up. I was confused. Who did this? I called dad first, and he told me where it came from. Not from him, but from Patrick Reed.
I didn't know, but after we got home, after we found the photo, dad used the 'contact us' page on Reed's website to send him the piece and the photo, and asked if Reed would autograph it. A thank you to me for making the trip.
To his surprise, he got a response from Reed himself. He said he liked the piece and wanted to have his framer do something special with the photo. "I read it in its entirety and he is lucky to have someone like you as a father," he wrote. (True)
Reed, his wife Justine, and my dad exchanged a few more emails over the course of a few weeks. When Reed was playing in The Open, Justine took over correspondence. My dad was now pen pals with a pro golfer.
A lot is said in golf media about Patrick Reed, and most of it isn't glowing. His popularity or lack thereof is a regular narrative in the game. To be honest, I knew very little about the guy until that year.
But my dad and I got to see a side of the man you won't often see in the headlines. Here's a guy weeks out from winning one of the greatest tournaments in sports, responding to a mailman in Texas who emailed him on a whim. And not just that.
He donated his own time to making something special for us. My dad and I have the memories of that weekend forever. We have the photos to prove it. And now we have this, too, thanks to Reed's generosity.
The world we live in right now is fraught. So many of us hold a tight grasp on our memories of the Before Times. This is one I hold onto tightly, especially now. Everyone's got their thing. For dad and I, it's golf, it's @TheMasters. And this kind gesture from @PReedGolf.
Here's to hoping that weather delay ends soon, so those of us that love it can lose ourselves in the weekend at Augusta, a place where time stands still, even when everything else is in shambles.
