GOLF Originals isn’t a PBS manufacturing, however we’re going to steal a PBS line right here anyhow: This collection is made potential by the help of Callaway and its CEO, Chip Brewer.
Thus far, GOLF Originals has allowed viewers such as you to see David Feherty, Tom Doak, Mike Whan, Brandel Chamblee and Padraig Harrington in (we hope!) new and attention-grabbing methods. And right here, in Episode 6, we deliver you O. Gordon Brewer Jr., alongside his namesake son, OHGORDON3, aka Chip.
So, sure, we’re aiming our digicam at our patron and, extra straight, his father. We accomplish that with pleasure. OGB is the OG. He’s one in all golf’s secret legends, just like the late Sandy Tatum or Adolphus (Golf Ball) Hull. Gordon is an unique.
Gordon Brewer grew up in a sure ma’am working household — little leisure time, few frills, church on Sundays — in Winston-Salem, N.C. He discovered his solution to golf by going to a mom-and-pop driving vary whereas attending Guilford Faculty in Greensboro on a basketball scholarship. A decade later, he was a husband, a father, a rising company govt — and top-of-the-line amateurs in a metropolis, Philadelphia, that’s loaded with them.
Gordon performed in 42 USGA occasions, together with six U.S. Senior Opens, and received the U.S. Senior Newbie twice. He was the Pine Valley president for a decade after which some. He was on the USGA board of administrators for years and received the Bob Jones Award, the USGA’s highest honor, in 2009. Tiger Woods received it this 12 months, for his taking part in report and his education-centered philanthropy. Gordon obtained it for his taking part in report and his golf-to-the-core integrity. There’s a whole lot of Bob Jones in O. Gordon, and a few Ben Hogan, too. He doesn’t want a whole lot of phrases.
I first met Mr. Brewer in 1988, at Pine Valley. His golf was extraordinary and so was he, exact in each approach. Gordon was even par by 13. Even and quiet. On 14, a protracted, downhill par-3 over a pond, he rinsed his tee shot and uttered (just about) his first phrases of the spherical. It was a query for his caddie: “What did you say the yardage was?” Adopted by, “I hit the fallacious membership.”
Darren Riehl/GOLF
However essentially the most telling factor in regards to the spherical got here earlier than we performed our first photographs. (No mulligans. PV isn’t a breakfast ball sort of place.) I used to be a reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer then. On the day of our sport, there was a front-page story I had written a couple of 15-year-old Philadelphia highschool scholar and soccer participant who had been stabbed to demise by one other scholar outdoors their faculty, Frankford Excessive. “It made me cry,” Mr. Brewer stated.
Golf at its finest informs your world. The world as it’s and appropriately informs each facet of Gordon’s life. You’ll hear the phrase integrity usually on this 10-minute mini-doc. There’s a telling story in it, father and son taking part in in an occasion at Pine Valley, and father calling a penalty on his son and educating him a lesson, one which has knowledgeable each facet of Chip’s life since then.
In a fashion of talking, Callaway’s help of this collection is a wee present to this sport, serving to us discover attention-grabbing lives and attention-grabbing folks within the sport, in attention-grabbing locations. (We shot Feherty in Las Vegas. We shot the Brewers in Pine Valley, N.J.) I solely want Sandy Tatum and Golf Ball had been nonetheless alive. They might have been nice for this collection. If in case you have ideas of individuals we must always function, please ship them my approach, well-known or not. I’m making an attempt to get the retired lefthander CC Sabathia now. I do know from speaking to him that golf has improved each facet of his life. Gordon Brewer would say the identical. It’s a place to begin for lots of issues, together with a spot on this collection.
Attempt to comprise your self as you watch him play pitch photographs on this video. He’s 88! The rhythm! Exhausting to think about pitching it with higher rhythm at any age.
Gordon loves baseball, basketball, golf, competitors. His son and his daughter and his lengthy, lengthy marriage have all been enriched and formed by golf and its values. Some would snicker at that sentence, however these persons are not, as an previous editor used to say, of golf. Gordon is. I as soon as launched Gordon to a baseball lifer named Joe Pignatano. He was a Brooklyn Dodger and Los Angeles Dodger who hit right into a triple play in his remaining at-bat. When Gordon, then the membership president, approached us, I believed we is likely to be in hassle for gradual play, for loud play, for one thing. Nothing of the sort. Gordon shook Joe’s hand, they usually talked about Koufax.
Topgolf is a large a part of Callaway’s enterprise at this time. I keep in mind Chip telling me about Topgolf years in the past, below the tree at Augusta. It didn’t sound like a match for Callaway to me. Reveals you why I kind for a residing. Chip knew how his father discovered his solution to golf, by the use of a driving vary with a little bit stash of baked-out golf equipment. It did the job. Now think about a driving vary with good balls, new golf equipment and chilly beer?
The daddy may see the entire thing. He knew from his personal life and instances: If you may get folks to golf, it’s a very good factor. Right here’s Gordon.
Michael Bamberger welcomes your feedback at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com.
