The View From Here . . .

Last weekend was the last Saturday and Sunday before young Robert departs for camp in central Maine, this year for seven weeks. The camp excursion makes sense for a number of reasons. One obvious one is that the lad, now age twelve and growing like a weed, will get to do many activities (for example, water skiing and overnight camping) that as a realistic matter he will never do with his aging father.

I always try to do something special before the lad leaves. We spent last Sunday, which was also Father's Day, at the U.S. Open golf tournament in Mamaroneck, in Westchester County. A lady friend of mine was nice enough to find some unused corporate tickets, which also included use of a hospitality tent near the eighteenth hole. Neither the lad nor I had ever been to a golf tournament, and it was all very exciting.

It was a hot, steamy day, although there was a reasonable breeze and the hospitality tent, in addition to being air conditioned, had a large bin of cold bottles of water for the taking. We spent a while in the stands behind the eighteenth and then decided to follow a twosome of golfers around the course. On the theory that Phil Mickelson would be mobbed by fans (especially in the absence of Tiger Woods, who failed to make the cut), we followed two of the other leading contenders, Vijay Singh and Colin Montgomerie, both very fine golfers. Although Robert and I normally do a good deal of walking, we were struck by the length of each hole and how much walking it takes to complete eighteen holes.

Since this was my first golf tournament, and I am anything but an expert on the sport, I will dispense with any attempt to analyze the rather strange finish, in which Mickelson squandered a seemingly safe lead a few minutes after Montgomerie, who we were following, lost (as it turned out) a chance to win or finish tied with a double bogey on the last hole. Geoff Oglivy of Australia ended up as the winner.

I do note, however, that we ended up in the middle of the action in a rather bizarre way. After we watched Montgomerie and Singh complete their games, the large crowds made it impossible to get anywhere near the eighteenth green for Mickelson's final shots, so I thought we would watch the remaining shots on the televisions in the hospitality tent. Just as we were getting into the tent, however, a ball hit the side of the structure, which turned out to be an errant shot by Mickelson. The golf officials and a state trooper cleared an area near the tent and Mickelson made a shot from a few feet near where we were standing, which was not all that successful. Unfortunately, the rest was history.

In any event, the tournament is behind us and we're doing the last packing for camp. In some ways, it will be nice to do some purely adult activities over the next few weeks while the lad is gone. But I am struck rather sadly with the notion that Robert is growing up fast and is now two thirds of the way to college. Days like last Sunday, when it is just Robert and me, father and son, hanging out together, are drawing all too swiftly to a close.