Man's best friend brings out best in the game of golf and life

Jeremy Johnson
jjohn308@mscd.edu

My friend's best friend was in an accident the Sunday before Thanksgiving.

Jeff Klein is one of my very best friends. I've known him as long as I've lived in Denver, and that's been a while. Jeff is a cross between a motivational guru and a future senatorial candidate. His enthusiasm and energy know no bounds.

Jeff's talents are endless. In 1998 he took up golf as a hobby, and now teaches the game for a living. Anyone who knows him envies him. Anyone who has ever picked up a 7-iron envies his abilities and his career.

Jeff has gotten drunk with me. He has laughed with me. He has taught me the fine art of fantasy football. He has helped me cope with lost love. And, perhaps most importantly, he has taught me how to golf.

Jeff's dog, Hogan, was the spitting image of him. Named after the famous golfer Ben Hogan, this canine was the ultimate underdog. Short and broad in appearance, Hogan was, in fact, heavy, strong and thick. When Jeff was teaching at the course, Hogan was the watchdog over his wife, Tasha, and his infant son, Sawyer Ryan. Hogan had a sidekick in his smaller sister, Marley.

Jeff got the news while playing Golden Tee and watching football at the College Inn. I talked to him later on the phone and all he could do was sob and tell me, "My Hogan's dead." Finally, we hung up and I cried for a while as well.

After three days mourning, Jeff called me Wednesday morning. Since I like to sleep in-and Jeff knows this-the call could only be for golf.

Jeff picked me up two hours later and I threw my gear in the back and hopped in his truck. His face was pale and strained, but he smiled at me and said, "Hey, JJ," in his usual manner. We began to drive to Mira Vista golf course in Aurora.

Small talk does not last long and, before I knew it, the subject of Hogan came up. I asked Jeff how Hogan went, and he gave me the details. A car had been speeding down the alley behind his house. His wife's hands had been full with two dogs and a child. It had been a complete and perfect accident.

And then came the inevitable question: "Why?" Jeff asked me. "Why did it happen? It's just so fucking senseless."

He was right. It was fucking senseless.

We both cried for 10 minutes or more, wondering about the meaning of life and pondering the existence of a God who would take a man's best friend. We reached the golf course with eyes squinted and red.

Jeff is a golf celebrity of sorts. He knew everybody at the course, including players and staff, and all of them offered condolences over his recent loss. He got us out on the course for free. Jeff is always good like that, knowing I'm a broke-ass college bum.

A hectic school schedule hadn't allowed me to play golf in over two months, but I wasn't nervous as I approached the first tee box. Instead, I felt calm and pure. I swung away freely. Poorly, yes, but freely.

The day was perfect. There was not a cloud in the sky, and temperature was unseasonably warm. If God did exist, he meant that day for golfing.

Jeff and I plugged through our game with an old friend, Stevie, telling jokes and putting our arms around each other occasionally to show our sincere love and respect for one another. We hacked at the earth and yelled at the sky.

I was at 47 strokes on the par-four ninth hole when I managed to hit a tee shot straight and long up the fairway, about 120 yards from the pin.

I'd been having a hard time hitting the green that day and expressed my dismay to Jeff, who was 20 yards across the way. "Dunk it," he said to me. "Put it in the hole. What have you got to lose?"

And he was right. Fate is fickle and life is fleeting and the best thing we could do was seize that most precious moment. We then stuck our 9-irons within 15 feet of the pin.

For most of that day, Jeff played more poorly than I had ever seen him play any game. I played even worse. But understand that golf is usually a game of shot control and course management. In light of our heavy moods, that logic simply didn't fly.

See, thanks to the loss of Hogan, we realized some things about golf and life. There are so many impossible moments that seem too heavy to overcome. There are so many unique opportunities that may never come around again.

The idea that day wasn't to score well. The idea was to take advantage of every opportunity we had in hopes of making that one great shot.

As fate would have it, and as Hogan would've wanted it, we all managed to make a few pretty damned good ones.