Twenty Years of "The Pressbox"

2020- Year 19

In the last twenty years I’ve been a teenager, graduate, bartender, accountant, recruiter, son, brother, and I’m sure a whole bunch of others things. I’ve lived in six cities across three states, two countries and two continents and can’t begin to count how many different houses/apartment I’ve called home. My life over the last twenty years has been full of changes.

My dad, over those same twenty years has been, well, a dad, a husband, a machinist, business-owner, and most recently, a retiree. He’s lived in one house, in one town, in one state. He’s the epitome of consistency. Busy by 6:30 every morning, home before dinner.

Our lives and the titles we have had have changed at a different pace over the years. However, on the first full-weekend of June, every single one of these last twenty years, we adopt a new description when we become partners for a two-day golf tournament at our home course in Pocatello, Idaho.

We call the tournament “The Pressbox” after the title sponsor of the event in 2002, the first year we played. That year I was 13, my dad, 47. It was the first “grown-up” golf tournament I ever played in and I still remember making some silly mistakes involving the rules and etiquette of the game. My dad never once got mad and I got hooked on the game at that point. When people ask me when I started playing golf, I say, “I started taking it seriously at 13, when I played in a tournament with my dad.”

Neither of us knew that the event would still be part of our lives in 2021. We will have played two years now during a global pandemic. We played the day after my sister’s wedding. At least three times we played on days when we would attend funerals later in the afternoon. In 2011, I made a 180-mile round trip drive on a Saturday afternoon/evening for work just to make sure I could be back in time to play on Sunday (and keep my job). Oh yea, and these last four years I have made the 5000 mile (8000 km) trip across the Atlantic Ocean to make sure I was here. Only once did my clubs not make the journey with me; a sarcastic thank you to Air France for that and a sincere thank you to my friend Brandon who allowed me to borrow his clubs for the weekend.

We started from the bottom (Kanye reference intended), worked are way up to the top, and now are somewhere in the middle. Our roles as teammates have changed. My dad was the coach, teaching me how to play tournament golf while being the anchor of the team. Now, we rely on his putting skills and consistency. There have been great years; winning our flight twice and finishing second at least twice more. And there have been some not so great years that are much easier to forget.  There were times when we tested each other’s patience and there have been times of elation after a miraculous shot that helped us secure victory. I still think of a perfectly struck seven-iron on the last hole the weekend after my high-school graduation 14 years ago. There was once a run of six holes where we made four birdies (a very good thing for readers that don’t golf) and two double bogeys (a very bad thing), leaving us at even par (a very average thing), without making a par. 

2008- First Team Photo

We have taken a team picture the last 13 years and shared beers in reflection of the round for the last 10. We’ve always stopped for hot-dogs after the front nine and always thought we had a chance at winning (or at least finishing in the money) come Sunday no-matter how bad Saturday went. However, these last few years, it doesn’t really matter how we play. Strokes are the fun metric. The important metric is the years and the eight to ten hours across two days of father-son time that really count. It took me a long time to realize this and I still need to be reminded of it every now and then. Especially when one of us misses a four-foot par putt. We’ve already missed plenty of those and will miss plenty more. Off the golf course, there have been good times and bad times these last twenty years as well. No matter what though, this is a weekend that is circled on the calendar, a chance to reset, a chance to play golf. In twenty years more, I’ll be in my 50’s and my dad in his 80’s. Life will certainly have changed for us many more times but I hope that on the first weekend in June, we will still be here in Pocatello, Idaho, playing in “The Pressbox.”