John Harris’s last round told the story of his epic golf life

A cruel reality of life is that at a certain point, everything you like to do, ultimately will do for the last time – and there is usually no way to know it until it is late.

This includes golf, beautiful, crazy, addicted sport you can play for decades, break down into a local muna or follow the day’s light on a sun -scattered coast. Throughout your life, you can play a thousand times. But someone will eventually be your last.

On September 11, John Harris and David Podas, as they had hundreds of times ago, played golf on a perfect morning in the fall. The course was Edina Country Club, just outside Minneapolis. Harris asked Podas the night before if he was free, he was, so the men met at the club.

Their time was 9:10 in the morning, but they set out early, just a couple, walking and holding their clubs. The grass was still wet, the temperature 60 degrees and is rising. It was not busy and they played quickly. They talked about PGA Tour and the next Ryder Cup, the type of things they would normally do.

It was a great day for a game – and Harris was in it. At one point, Podas asked him, “Did you leave a car this morning? Is it like 1995 and I don’t know that?”

In Minnesota, everyone knows John Harris, one of the greatest athletes the state has ever seen. At college, at the University of Minnesota, Harris played for Herb Brooks; He was the leading captain and scorer in the 1974 National Championship Men’s Hockey team. That same year, in the Gophers Men’s Golf team, he won the Big Ten Championship and later the state amateur of Minnesota.

His resumption grew only from there: some amateur titles of Minnesota State and Mid-am, a Tour Champions’ win, Walker Cup teams, a national membership Augusta and, mostly, a 1993 American amateur win at the age of 41, making it the first to win the championship.

“I am very happy to have happened to me that day free because none of us saw that this was approaching as fast as it happened,” Podas says. “I thought we had a lot of golf.”

In recent years, Harris has fought acute myeloid leukemia, a rare cancer affecting bone marrow and blood. Some days have been better than others. But over the weekend, after his round with Podas, Harris felt ill and searched at a hospital. On Wednesday, Harris died. He was 73 years old.

“In the 40s I met John, he was a bigger man than the Golf player,” says Podas, who believes their two balls in the morning were the last round of Harris Golf who ever played. “He was just an exemplary individual. His golf record speaks himself – he was a champion – but he led his life in such an exemplary way.”

Harris grew up in Roseau, Minn., The small town of Minnesota 10 miles south of the Canadian border known for producing high -level hockey talent. This included Harris, who won a scholarship to play under Brooks in u to m, following the footsteps of his father, Dr. Bob Harris. (His younger brother, Rob, also played for gophers and at the Winter Olympics of 1976.)

After graduation, Harris played the Little League before receiving Golf Pro, and in 1975 he linked the 11th to PGA Tour’s qualifying tournament to win privileges for the next season. He made only three cuts in 10 starts and failed to keep membership, and a few years later he reached Bill Homeyer, a friend and former team of team with Gophers Golf (and Hilary Lunke’s father, who won 2003 US Women Open). Harris was curious to enter the insurance business like Homeyer, who told him to try and get some experience in the field. When they got back later, Harris had a question: “How should I get experience if no one will hire me?”

Homeyer brought to Harris, and a few years later they broke away and co-founded Harris-Homer Insurance. Harris recaptured his amateur status in 1983 and went with tears. He won the four amateurs of the Minnesota State and three am of the state of Minnesota.

In 1993, with the 14-year-old Chris son in the bag, Harris won the American amateur at the Golf Club Champions in Houston, which included a quarterfinal victory over Justin Leonard, nearly 40 years later, is still the last lumbar player (25 and older) to win Havemeyer. That summer he was named in the first four Walker Cup teams, where he compiled a 10-4 record.

At the 1995 Walker Cup, Harris joined Tiger Woods and finished 1-1 in the fourth games. Harris and Woods were the last two matches for Sunday bachelors and received the only US victories. Harris beat a 24-year-old Padraig Harrington, who returned a professional after the Walker Cup.

This record of the match was not unclear, Harris’s friends will tell you. They say he was a golf ball striker before he became fashionable and someone whose competition, severity and stoicism never kept him out of a match. The last mill, they would say. A warrior who never left.

“He never got up very high and he never became very low,” says Dick Blooston, who won two balls of the Minelesota Golf Association with Harris. “If he were to go down to a bad start, you would never notice him; he never changed his mood and I think this is one of the things that made him so successful. He just kept going, going together, playing a hole in a while, and he would play much more holes than it would be weak.”

Podas recently retired as a director of golf from Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles, but before that he was the pro-chairman at Minneapolis Golf Club in the 1990s, where he became close to Harris. Their essential group of Ringers played a couple of times a week throughout the cities, taking advantage of the long days of Minnesota summer to grab 4am and trade $ 5 for $ 5 playing as if they were competing for an open trophy in the US.

“We were all the best friends, but when we left it we wanted to deceive each other,” Podas says.

When Harris returned 50, he returned to the pros, this time at the PGA Tour Champions. In 2006 he won the New York Trade Bank Championship for his first and only Tour’s first victory.

Appropriately, it came to a play off, the type of head -to -head duel that he flourished in his amateur career. Harris came from five blows down, entering the last round to shoot 64, tie Tom Jenkins and beat him in the first additional hole.

“I was probably in more my comfort zone,” Harris said afterwards, referring to the Play off. “I knew what to do. I just had to believe in myself in that situation.”

Later in life, Harris moved to Florida but spent wine in Minnesota. He also received the mentoring, at least in the case of Noah Kent, a current Golfer university of Florida he was written on his golf glove.

In the final with 36 holes, Jose Luis Ballester was 4 up at the point of half above Kent, then the 560th Rang amateur in the world. Kent used the short break between the 18th to call Harris. “If you fight, you know in your heart that you won’t be bored,” Harris told. “If you don’t fight, it will leave you haunted.”

Harris may be referring to his battles, but in this case he was focused on Kent, who entered the Birdie in the next hole to cut the deficit in half. Ballester’s direction was shortened to only 1 up to 36, though he won the match 2 above. Kent lost but it was gracefulA feature he undoubtedly received from his mentor.

“Something about golf, we lose much more than we win. And John, one of the things I always admired for him, he had the ability to bring himself grace if they were handing over to him the trophy or if he ended up,” Podas says. “And this is an amazing characteristic of someone. I certainly admired John as a winner, but no one could win with grace, readiness and class as he did.

“I will never forget it for it.”

Back to Edina Country Club last Thursday, Now sharing a podas cart, Harris’s sharp game continued the stretch. Podas says this was always one of Harris’s best qualities to close, to play his best Sunday golf, like him in his old victory. Many can play well early during the week, but few have that ability to do it when calculated. For Harris, he was in his DNA.

Finishing a tournament or opponent is a skill, so Podas knew he was in trouble after 16 holes.

Harris still had that trait at this stage of his life. He had played Golf several times a week since he returned to Minnesota for Summer, and despite his health wars, his game continued to improve. Probably not for John Harris’s high standards. But well with any measure.

“John played nicely,” Podas says. “I mean, beautifully”

On this day, Harris took a lead in the 17th hole of the 17th. He was 2 up.

Podas joked with him: “You’ve ever been 2 with two to play?”

Harris sparked a miserable smile. Two with two to play means time to close. Be aggressive, but don’t make a mistake. The type of mentality was tried by many harsh competitors, but executed by little. Harris shakes, navigating his ball through the air and downwardly descending it in the middle of green. That was chess now, and Harris was not ready to make a mistake.

The game plan worked on perfection: Harris and Podas associated with pars, giving Harris a 2-and-1 victory. He shot 72.

Standing in the 17th green, they smiled, removed their hats, wished each other in a great match and shook hands. Five days later, as Podas left the Harris hospital room, he shook his friend’s hand for the last time.

You can reach the author in Joshua.berhow@golf.com.

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