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

A cruel reality of life is that everything you like to do, you will eventually do for the last time – and there is usually no way to know until it’s too late.

This includes golf, the beautiful, maddening, addictive sport that you can play for decades, dew sweeping on a local muni or daylight chased on a sun-drenched coast. For a lifetime you may play a thousand times. But people will eventually be your last.

On September 11, John Harris and David Podas, as they had hundreds of times earlier, golf on a perfect autumn morning. 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 in the club.

Their tee was 9:10 am, but they came out early, only two, walking and their own clubs. The grass was still wet, the temperature 60 degrees and rises. It wasn’t busy and they played quickly. They spoke about the PGA Tour and the coming Ryder Cup, the kind of things they would normally do.

It was a great day for a game – and Harris was on his. At one point Podas asked him: “Did you come from a time machine this morning? Is it just like 1995 and I don’t know?”

In Minnesota everyone knows John Harris, one of the greatest athletes that the state has ever seen. At the university, at the University of Minnesota, Harris played for Herb Brooks; He was the captain and the second leading scorer in the national men’s hockey team of 1974. In the same year he won the Big ten Championship in the Gophers Golf Team and later the Minnesota State Amateur.

His CV only grew from there: various amateur and mid-am titles in Minnesota, a Champions Tour victory, Walker Cup teams, a national membership of Augusta and, in particular, a victory in the US Amateur of 1993 at the age of 41.

“I am so happy that I had that day off, because none of us would see this coming as soon as it did,” says Podas. “I thought we had a lot of wave left.”

In recent years, Harris fought against acute myeloid leukemia, a form of cancer that influences bone marrow and blood. Some days were better than others. But during the weekend, after his round with Podas, Harris felt sick and checked in a hospital. Harris died on Wednesday. He was 73.

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

Harris grew up in Roseau, Minn., The small city of Minnesota 10 miles south of the Canadian border known for the production of high -level hockey talent. That included Harris, who deserved a scholarship to play under Brooks on the U of M, in the footsteps of his father, Dr. Bob Harris. (His younger brother, Rob, also played for the Gophers and in the Winter Olympics of 1976.)

After graduating, Harris Minor League played hockey before he started Pro Golf, and in 1975 he came in 11th place on the PGA Tour Qualification Tournament to earn play rights for the following season. He only made three cutbacks in 10 Starts and did not succeed in keeping membership, and a few years later he contacted Bill Homeyer, a friend and former teammate at the Gophers Golf team (and the father of Hilary Lunke, who won the US Women’s Open 2003). Harris was curious to get to the insurance company like Homeyer, who told him to try some experience in the field. When they connected again later, Harris had a question: “How should I gain experience if nobody will hire me?”

Homeyer brought in Harris and a few years later they broke away and were co-founder of Harris-Homeyer insurance. Harris regained his amateur status in 1983 and went into a tear. He won four Minnesota State mid-amateurs and three Minnesota State AMS.

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

During the Walker Cup 1995, Harris worked with Tiger Woods and finished 1-1 in Foursomes Play. Harris and Woods were the last two games for Sunday singles and took the only American victories. Harris defeated a 24-year-old Padraig Harrington, who became professional after the Walker Cup.

That match-play record was not a ranger, Harris’s friends will tell you. They say he was a bomber of the golf ball before it became vogue and someone whose competitiveness, toughness and stoicism never kept him out of a competition. The ultimate grinder, they would say. A hunter who never stopped.

“He has never become too high and he has never become too low,” says Dick Blooston, who won two Minnesota Golf Association Four-Balls with Harris. “If he started a bad start, you would never notice it; he never changed his attitude and I think that’s one of the things that made him so successful. He just kept going, going further, played a hole at the same time, and he would play much more holes better than he would be bad.”

Podas recently retired as the director of Golf of Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles, but before that he was the main pro at Minneapolis Golf Club in the 1990s, where he came close to Harris. Their core group of Ringers played a few times a week in the entire cities and took advantage of the long summer days of Minnesota at 4 p.m. t -shirt times and to exchange $ 5 per round as if they were fighting for an American open trophy.

“We were all the best friends, but when we walked that T -shirt, we wanted to oppose each other,” says Podas.

When Harris turned 50, he returned to the Pro Game, this time on the PGA Tour champions. In 2006 he won the Commerce Bank Championship in New York for his first and only Senior Tour victory.

It came in fitting in a play-off, the kind of head-to-head duel where he flourished in his amateur career. Harris came down from five strokes and entered the last round to shoot 64, bind Tom Jenkins and hit him on the first extra hole.

“I was probably in more of 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 the summers in Minnesota. He also started mentoring, at least in the case of Noah Kent, a current golfer from the University of Florida that he met after meeting each other for the first time in Calusa Pines when Noah was last summer, has made a spicy run to the American amateur final at Hazeltine in Chaska, Minn. Battling Aml Back in Florida, Harris did not make the trik to Minnes, but they spoke Harris ‘Harris Harris’ initials written on his golf glove.

In the 36-hole final, Jose Luis Ballester 4 was halfway through Kent, then the 560th ranking in the world. Kent used the short break between the 18S to call Harris. “When you fight, you know in your heart that you are not upset,” Harris told him. “If you don’t fight, let it chase you.”

Harris could have referred to his own fighting, but in this case he was aimed at Kent, who caught up in the next hole for Birdie to cut the shortage into two. Ballester’s lead was cut to just 1 in 36th tee, although he won the match 2. Kent lost but was merciful to the defeat, a characteristic that he undoubtedly picked up from his mentor.

“Something about golf, we lose much more than we win. And John, one of the things I always admired to him, he had the ability to behave with Grace if they handed him the trophy or if he finished second,” says Podas. “And that is an amazing feature of someone. I certainly admired John as a winner, but nobody could not win with the Grace, Poise and Class as he did.

“I will never forget that.”

Back in Edina Country Club last Thursday, Now sharing a cart with podas, Harris’s sharp game went further into the piece. Podas says that this is always one of the best qualities of Harris’s ability to close, to play his best wave on Sunday, as he did in his senior tour victory. Many can play well early in the week, but few have the ability to do it when it counts. For Harris it was in his DNA.

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

Harris still had that characteristic in this phase of his life. He played golf a few times a week since he returned to Minnesota for the summer, and despite his health struggle, his game continued to improve. Perhaps not according to John Harris’ own high standards. Good to any extent.

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

On this day Harris took a lead over the par-3 17th hole. He was 2 up.

Podas joked with him: “You were once 2 with two to play?”

Harris flashed a bitter smile. Two with two to play means time to close. Be aggressive, but don’t make a mistake. The type of mentality that is being tried by many fierce competitors, but by few executed. Harris waved, sailed with his ball through the air and landed him safely in the middle of the green. This was now chess and Harris was not about to make a mistake.

The game plan worked to perfection: Harris and Podas connected to Pars, giving Harris a 2-and-1 victory. He shot 72.

Standing on the 17th Green, they pulled out their hats, congratulated each other with a well -played match and shaking hands. Five days later, when Podas left Harris’s hospital room, he last shook his friend’s hand.

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

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