I didn’t start playing golf until I was about 15, right before my freshman year of high school. My older brother was somewhat getting into it, and one of my best friends growing up played a lot too — between the two of them, I caught the bug.

I still remember the first time my dad took me to the driving range. It was two days before school started, and we went out to the Etowah Park Driving Range in Rome, Georgia — a no-frills municipal spot where a bucket of balls and an hour under the summer sun felt like an event. Dad brought along his buddy Troy, one of those high school teachers who coached just about every sport under the sun. Troy showed me how to grip the club and make a basic swing, and Dad chimed in with plenty of his own pointers.

That afternoon kicked off a new chapter for both of us. My two older brothers were off at college, so for four years I was basically an only child at home. Those years meant a lot of golf with my dad. He was patient, willing to spend hours walking me through the game — how to think about a hole, how to stay calm after a bad shot, and why golf was about more than just your score.

It’s funny — one of my first memories of him trying to get us into golf was years earlier at the Great Dunes course at Jekyll Island. I must’ve been a little kid, and Dad was giving us a mini clinic on how to hold the club and swing like a pendulum. He took a nice, confident practice swing, stepped up to the ball... and sliced it straight into the dunes. We laughed until we couldn’t breathe. Back then, I got so bored I asked if we could just walk back to the condo.

Now, every time I visit home or meet up with my parents, Dad and I make time to play 18 somewhere. Just this past weekend, we played Stonebridge Golf Club while I was home for a wedding. It’s different now. When I was in high school, if I had a bad hole, Dad would say, “Well, at least I am not at work and you’re not studying for a test.” These days, when adult life gets stressful, I catch myself thinking, man, I wish I was out playing golf with Dad.

He went to medical school in Augusta, so every spring, The Masters becomes our shared tradition. He still tells the story of being there in 1987 when Larry Mize chipped in to win the playoff. This past year, I got to go on Sunday and see Rory complete the Grand Slam. On the drive home, I called Dad to tell him about it. We’ve never been to Augusta together — until now. This coming spring, we’re finally going to the Augusta National Women’s Amateur together. It feels like we’re closing the loop — getting to share that experience, at that place, side by side.

We’ve been fortunate to have some really special rounds together too — including one at the Old Course at St Andrews, which felt almost spiritual walking those same fairways where golf began. And next spring, we’re planning to play Pinehurst together, another bucket-list stop that will no doubt become part of our story.

There’s something special about golf and fathers and sons. Some people joke that guys don’t really “go on walks” to talk things out — they just play golf. But that’s the beauty of it. You get four quiet hours to talk, or not talk, and just be together.

When I play with my dad now, I don’t care much about what I shoot. Sure, I still want to play well, but it’s more about the time — unplugging from our phones, getting outside, and being fully present.

This Christmas, our family’s heading back to Jekyll Island. The Great Dunes course — the same one from that childhood memory — has just finished a big renovation. We’ll get to play the new layout, and I’ve already told Dad how meaningful it is that three generations of Douglas’ play there. My granddad (my dad’s dad) was a good golfer who loved playing Jekyll too. I never got the chance to play with him, but knowing that all three of us — across generations — will have walked those same fairways feels special.

Golf does that. It connects people across time. It gives you stories, laughs, and quiet moments that you don’t realize mean so much until years later. I still have one of my grandfather’s old sand wedges — it even has his name stamped on it. I replaced it about a year ago with a Vokey SM9 60-degree, but sometimes I still slip his wedge into the bag, just for posterity’s sake. There’s something grounding about having it there — like carrying a small piece of him along for the round.

For me, golf started at Etowah Park with my dad — and somehow it became the thread that ties me back to my dad, and even to the grandfather I never got to tee it up with.