before heading for the parking lot.
At the top of the leaderboard sat Charlie
Graham, whose 68 earned him medalist honors and
the number one seed in the match play draw.
Watching Charlie play, it was impossible
not to be impressed by his steady and thoughtful
demeanor. If his stomach was churning and his
mind was racing you would have never known it by
looking at him. Calmly going about his business, he
might just as easily have been in a library, a place he
will in fact start spending a lot of time this fall when
he begins his freshmen year at Duke.
These were just general impressions, but then
Charlie did something at the end of his tournament
that provided a real glimpse into his character.
He raked a bunker.
Actually it was how he raked the bunker and
the circumstances surrounding the raking that was
most significant.
After winning medalist honors on Monday,
and two matches on Tuesday (over the previously
mentioned Fagan and Maguire), and another match
on Wednesday morning, Charlie faced a buzz saw in
defending champion Andrew Franz in the afternoon
semifinal. It wasn’t a close match.
Franz was dormie, four up with four to play
as the pair teed off on Watertown’s par 3 fifteenth.
Franz stuck it to 10 feet and Charlie found the right,
greenside bunker. A decent bunker shot to five feet
followed, but Franz wasn’t about to three putt, and
the match and Charlie’s glorious week was about to
end.
Without the slightest hint of disappointment
or exhaustion, and with the same methodical body
language that produced wonderful golf over the
previous three days, Charlie Graham picked up a
nearby rake and meticulously smoothed the sand
with the deliberate focus of a PGA Tour caddy. Not
only did Charlie clean up his own mess
perfectly, he looked for and found a few
other imperfections and smoothed them
as well as he exited the bunker. An extra
five, maybe an extra ten seconds was all it
took, but it revealed something timeless
and inspiring.
I learned later that Charlie’s grandfather
once told him, “When you rake a bunker,
do it as if your best girl is going to be the
next person in there.”
Who knows if those words from Dick
Siderowf were in his grandson’s head at
that very moment, but given that Charlie’s
hope of winning was over, and he was no
doubt physically and mentally drained,
the selfless act of doing the right thing
and doing it exactly right was one of the
most memorable acts of the entire week.
Clearly a young man of character,
among many young men of character.
Charlie Graham of Brooklawn Country Club
www.csgalinks.org
CSGA Links // July, 2017 | 5