CLICK here for VIDEO Interview with Calvin Peete (Part 1).
CLICK here for VIDEO Interview with Calvin Peete (Part 2)
Sitting on the patio at TPC Sawgrass with Calvin Peete. It could not have been a more pleasant evening or conversation.
Just last Saturday, as a volunteer for THE PLAYERS Championship, I was cleaning the portraits of the champions on Championship Way and when I got to Calvin Peete’s image it seemed a little brighter and a little more brilliant than the rest of them. It made me wonder about him and how he was doing. I didn’t recall seeing him at last year’s PLAYERS and it’s been a year-and-a-half since I interviewed him at the Farewell Gathering at the Clubhouse at TPC Sawgrass for the Journey to Olympic Golf. Sadly, I learned today of his passing. We have lost another of Golf’s Greats.
His passing brought me back to watch the above two videos one more time. Twelve minutes in total I think they are worth watching, for older and younger people alike. One minute for each of his twelve tour victories, the biggest being the 1995 PLAYERS which put him up on Championship Way with the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods. At the very end of the second video I asked him an open ended question, what else would he like to share with the folks watching. He looked around for an American flag and said “God bless America.” He started the interview stating that “he was happy to be alive at age 70. My thoughts go out to his widow Pepper and his children and all I can think is “God bless Calvin Peete.”
Calvin Peete set a new record when he won the 1985 PLAYERS. Our hats off to Calvin Peete 30 years later. Photo Credit Google Images
He inspired me as a young adult in the early 80s when he won 11 of his 12 victories in a five year span, including “the major of the players,” the 1985 PLAYERS Championship. He had grit and determination, talent and a crooked arm from a fall out of a tree. He started playing golf at age 23 at Genesee Valley Golf Course in Rochester, New York, a great municipal golf course that I played many times when I lived nearby. His first year on tour was at age 32. Age and physical handicaps like a crooked arm doesn’t mean a thing to that little white ball, does it?
As I watched these video interviews I thought about the humbleness of this man and his high level of intelligence. He was a thinking man out on the golf course and outside the ropes in life. We spoke about how he was always the first player off the tee, walking ahead with his head held high no matter the order of play or the result of the tee shots. He always stayed in the moment, not getting too far ahead or too far behind in his thoughts. The most pleasant time of his life was when he was practicing and learning golf so that is what he chose to think about when he set out to beat all the other good golfers on tour. His inner strength was knowing that when he was playing his best, nobody else could beat him, like on the Sunday thirty years ago when he shot 66 to win by three strokes.
Calvin Peete with his good friend Arthur Johnson. Two balls in a cup.
He loved the game we love because of its challenge. In his words, “the ball is just sitting there saying hit me.” It was a challenge he never experienced before and one we all experience every round—how to be able to control that little white ball?”
Patriotic, above all except one thing, which he caught himself on in the interview. An always present man, with a secure and quietly confident spirit about him. Played two Ryder Cups for his country. To represent your country in the greatest sports arena in the world. There is nothing greater, except Calvin pointed out, nothing greater than to represent your God.
Amongst all the jubilation and excitement of the 44th PLAYERS nest week, there will be sadness with the absence of the 1985 Champion Calvin Peete. While I miss watching him play and compete like he did in the 80s, I will miss the really good human being. After we said what is now our last good bye on the patio, we went out to the range and Mr. Peete hit a hickory-shafted golf club for the first time in his life. he wasn’t old, he was young and getting younger.
With Calvin Peete after he first hit a hickory-shafted golf club. You can tell how excited he was by how he is holding the hickory club in this picture!
That day I was setting out on a 100-day, 14-country, 14,871-mile golfing odyssey called the “Journey to Olympic Golf,” not having any idea of what it would be like or how it would go for me. One considerate, caring, creature helped me get it started and is now on the other side of this life. He is surely alive in a wonderful paradise probably swinging with two straight arms, hitting it 30 yards further and maybe missing one or two fairways a round but still going low.
God bless America and God bless Calvin Peete
