John Harris’ final round tells the story of his epic golf life

The cruel reality in life is that at some point everything you like to do and you end up doing it the last time – usually until it’s too late, and usually you can’t know it.

This includes golf, beautiful, crazy, addictive sports that you can play for decades, sweep over local Muni, or chase sunlight on the sun shining shore. You may play a thousand times in your life. But it will be your last one in the end.

On September 11, John Harris and David Podas played golf hundreds of times like them, on a perfect fall morning. The course is at the Edina Country Club outside Minneapolis. Harris asked Podas the night before if he was available, so the guys met at the club.

Their serving time was 9:10 am, but they got off early and just two people walked, walking and taking their club with them. The grass is still wet, the temperature is 60 degrees and rises. It’s not busy, they race very quickly. They talked about the PGA Tour and the upcoming Ryder Cup, which is something they usually do.

It was a great day for a game – Harris in his game. Podas once asked him, “Do you have a time machine this morning? Like in 1995, don’t I know?”

In Minnesota, everyone knows John Harris, one of the greatest athletes in the state of all time. Harris played for Herb Brooks at the University of Minnesota. He was the captain and second-leading scorer of the 1974 national champion men’s hockey team. That same year, he won the Big Ten Championship on the Gophers Men’s Golf team and later won the Minnesota Amateur.

His resume only grew up from there: several Minnesota amateur and central champions, championship tour victory, Walker Cup team, Augusta national membership, and most notably, the victory among 41-year-old American amateurs in 1993 made him the last adult to win the championship.

“I’m glad I happened to have a free day because no one of us saw it would soon be like it is,” Podas said. “I thought we still have a lot of golf.”

Over the past few years, Harris has fought acute myeloid leukemia, a cancer that affects the bone marrow and blood. Some days are better than others. But on the weekend, Harris felt uncomfortable during the game against Podas and was admitted to the hospital. Harris died Wednesday. He is 73 years old.

“In the 40 years I’ve known John, he’s bigger than the golfer.” Podas said he thinks their two-goal in the morning was the last round Harris once played. “He’s just a model guy. His golf record is what he talks about – he’s the champion – but he lives his life in this exemplary way.”

Harris grew up in Roseau, Minnesota A small town in Minnesota, 10 miles south of the Canadian border, is known for producing senior hockey talents. These included Harris, who received a scholarship at Brooks at M after the footsteps of his father, Bob Harris. (His younger brother Rob also played for the gophers and the 1976 Winter Olympics.)

After graduation, Harris played the minor league hockey game before playing Pro Golf. In 1975, he tied for 11th place in the PGA Tour Qualification Championship to win the privilege of the next season. He made only three layoffs in 10 games but failed to retain membership, and a few years later he won a friend and former teammate Bill Homeyyer with the Gophers Golf team (and Hilary Lunke’s father, who won the 2003 U.S. Women’s Open). Harris is curious about insurance industries like Homeyyer, who told him to try to gain some experience in the field. When they contacted again later, Harris asked a question: “How should I gain experience if no one would hire me?”

Homeyer brought Harris, and a few years later they collapsed and co-founded Harris-Homeyer Insurance. Harris regained his amateur status in 1983 and shed tears. He won four mid-term members of Minnesota and three Minnesota AMS.

In 1993, Harris got on the bag with his 14-year-old son Chris, winning American amateurs at the Champions Golf Club in Houston, including a quarter-final defeat of Justin Leonard, and nearly 40 years later, remains the last mid-sized AM player (25 and 25 and older) to win Havemeyer. That summer, he was named the first of four Walker Cup teams, where he wrote a 10-4 record.

In the 1995 Walker Cup, Harris teamed up with Tiger Woods to score 1-1 in a quarter of the game. Harris and Woods were the last two games of the singles Sunday and had their only wins. Harris beat Padraig Harrington, 24, who became a pro after the Walker Cup.

Harris’ friends will tell you that the record of that game is not fluke. They say he was a golf bomber before becoming Vogue, and the competitiveness, resilience and stoic man never took him out of the game. They say the final grinder. A warrior who never quits.

“He’s never too high, nor too low,” said Dick Blooston, who won two Minnesota Golf Association four goals. “If he doesn’t start well, you’ll never notice it; he’ll never change his character, and I think it’s one of the things that makes him so successful. He just keeps moving forward, plays football once, punches a hole once, and his loopholes will be better than his bad loopholes.”

Podas recently served as golf director from the Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles, but before that, he was the lead professional player at the Minneapolis Golf Club in the 1990s, where he approached Harris. Their core ringtone team played a few times a week in the city, taking advantage of Minnesota’s long summer days and encountered a 4-point serve time, trading $5 $5 per round, as if they were fighting for the U.S. Open Trophy.

“We are all best friends, but when we walked out of that t-shirt, we wanted to challenge each other,” Popas said.

When Harris was 50, he returned to the professional competition, this time as the PGA Tour champion. In 2006, he won his first victory in the New York Commercial Bank Championship and was the only senior tour champion.

Suitably, it was a playoff, a head-to-head duel that he flourished throughout his amateur career. Harris came from five and entered the final round, scoring 64, equalizing Tom Jenkins and defeated him in the first extra hole.

“I’m probably in a more comfortable zone,” Harris said afterward. “I know what I have to do. In this case, I just have to believe in myself.”

Later in life, Harris moved to Florida but spent the summer in Minnesota. He also took up mentoring, at least in the case of Noah Kent, a current University of Florida golfer he got to know after they first met at Calusa Pines when Noah was 10. Last summer, Kent made a spiritualized run to the US Amateur final at Hazeltine in Chaska, Minn. Battling AML back in Florida, Harris didn’t make the trip to Minnesota to watch Kent, but they talked daily, and Kent had Harris’ abbreviation is written on his golf gloves.

In the 36-hole final, Jose Luis Ballester ranked 4 midway through Kent, then the world’s No. 560 amateur. Kent called Harris during a short break between the ages of 18. “If you fight, you know you won’t be frustrated,” Harris told him. “If you don’t fight, that will haunt you.”

Harris could have referred to his own battle, but in this case he focused on Kent, who cut the birds in the next hole, reducing the deficit in half. Despite winning the game two titles, Palestinian has only one lead on the 36th tee. Kent lost, but was kind in the failure, and he undoubtedly got a feature from his mentor.

“We lost far more than we won about golf. John, one thing I always admired about him, whether they handed him a trophy or he was second, he had the ability to act in graceful ways,” said Bodas. “It’s an amazing feature of someone. I certainly admire John as the winner, but no one can win grace, calmness and class as he does.

“I will never forget him.”

Back at Edina Country Club last Thursday Now, Harris’ keen game continues to extend. Popas said it has always been one of Harris’ best qualities — his ability to close, play the best golf on Sunday, just like he did on a senior trip. Many can do well at the beginning of the week, but few can do it when counting. For Harris, that was in his DNA.

Completing a match or an opponent is a skill, so Podas knows he’s in trouble after 16 holes.

Harris still has this characteristic at this stage of his life. He has played golf several times a week since returning to Minnesota in the summer, and his game continues to improve despite his health struggles. Maybe it’s not John Harris’ own high standards. But no matter what.

“John played well,” Bodas said. “I mean, fine. ”

On this day, Harris led the 17th hole on the 3rd hole. He is 2 years old.

Podas joked with him: “Have you ever played with two people?”

Harris smiled. Playing with two and two means time is closed. Be proactive, but don’t make mistakes. Many fierce competitors try the mentality type, but are rarely executed. Harris waved, drove the ball through the air and landed it safely in the middle of the green. It’s chess now, and Harris is not going to make a mistake.

The game plan is perfect: Harris and Podas tied with par, giving Harris a 2 and 1 victory. He fired 72.

They stood on the 17th green green, took off their hats, congratulated each other, performed well in the match, shook hands. Five days later, when Popas left Harris’ ward, he held his friend’s hand for the last time.

You can contact the author at joshua.berhow@golf.com.

“>