Every mother has images of her children fixed in her memory, which can be summoned on demand, but often arise unbidden, floating into focus and jerking us back in time. Sometimes they are copies of photographs imprinted by repeated viewing –like pictures of my younger son, Felix, clutching his blankie, tucked under my arm as I read him a bedtime story and the heat of his little body lulled me to sleep. I called him the human teddy bear, that’s how often I conked out in his bed.
As I drive from Toronto to Black Bear Ridge Golf Club, a public course 12 kilometres north of Belleville, Ont., for an overnight golf getaway, I look in the rearview mirror and marvel at the 6-foot-1-inch height and deep voice of the 21-year-old man crammed in the backseat with two of his childhood buddies. Their excited chatter conjures a memory of Felix’s 10th birthday party, when I was gripped by fear as I drove him and four friends down a dark highway in a torrential downpour, and I had to ask them to stop shouting and laughing so I could concentrate on getting my precious cargo to an indoor trampoline park.
The author Kim, with her son Felix as a three year old, and in 2021. Photo: Courtesy of Kim Honey
One of those friends, Aidan, is in the back seat. Upon arrival at the golf course restaurant, he orders an old-fashioned. The last time I saw this mustachioed young man, he was a decade younger and two feet shorter. Time’s arrow never felt more pointed.
When he was five, Felix promised he would never leave me, but we all know how that story ends. I’ve been granted a reprieve, since, for the past two years, he’s been sharing my two-bedroom condo with me as he figures out his next steps. It took me about a year to stop worrying that he had been murdered if he stayed at a friend’s and didn’t come home at night.
But Felix is a laconic sort, more inclined to drop a one-liner than reveal his innermost thoughts, and I’ve been struggling to find a way to connect with the boy who once adored me. I normally see him in passing, as he comes home from work and vanishes into his bedroom to watch a basketball game.
Golf is one thing we both know how to do, albeit badly, and I’m hoping this weekend will spark a drive to get out more, and give us some common ground to build a new relationship before he sends me to the nursing home.
My two middle-aged girlfriends are along for the ride, and we happily play Scrabble, drink beer and throw darts with Felix and his friends.
Kim, Sarah and Liz in golf cart. Photo: Courtesy of Kim Honey
After a post-dinner conversation about the Drake-Kendrick Lamar feud, they sync their Spotify playlists to the Sonos speaker, and, to our surprise, play a lot of music we know and love but had lost to the mists of time: Linger by the Cranberries, Come On Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners and even Johnny B. Goode by Chuck Berry. At one point, we are all on our feet and I am dancing with my son – a sentence I never thought I would ever write.
Assistant club pro Ben Graham is waiting at the driving range on Saturday morning to give me and the boys a lesson, as Dylan and Aidan are brand new to the game and Felix and I are novices.
Graham has been golfing since he was six. His father used to drop him off at a course in the morning and pick him up in the evening. “Golf was my babysitter,” says the Belleville native, a PGA of Canada member who played for St. Lawrence College in Kingston, Ont., before he turned pro.
“Now guys, you don’t have to hammer the ball,” he says every time he walks by Felix, who keeps winding up tighter than a fastball pitcher. When the boys ask Graham to demonstrate his 300-yard drive and he nearly hits the trees at the end of the range, they are smitten. Felix, a lefty, is chuffed to learn he will be using Graham’s old set of clubs, which he hopes are “infused with magical golf powers.” Aidan pokes fun at his own struggles and jokes he’s hitting the ball “probably 20 per cent of the time.” Dylan’s confident prediction? “I just know when I’m actually on the course, I’m gonna turn into Tiger Woods.” (Thank god I bring 30 second-hand balls, because by the time the 18-hole Magee Championship Course is done with us, it has gobbled up all but five.)
After Aidan duffs a drive and takes a big divot out of the ground, Felix cracks, “Half man, half gopher.” We slice, we hook, we dribble and we take a lot of do-overs, a.k.a. mulligans. When our swings miss the ball, the boys kindly call it a “practice shot.” I laugh and laugh and laugh, especially when Dylan tees up for a drive, swings the club back and, on the downswing, screams, “I am going to murder this ball!” Needless to say, he doesn’t.
Felix, teeing off. Photo: Courtesy of Kim Honey
On the back nine, we lose most of the balls on holes 11 to 13, which they call “Amen Corner” (a nod to the Masters and the same three-hole stretch at the famous Augusta National Golf Club), because you definitely want to say a prayer before each swing and a hallelujah if you make par on 13, given there are water hazards on three sides. The drinks cart comes around and I buy everyone a beer. Dylan is gobsmacked when I say we should get going and point out the drink holders on the golf carts. “You mean we can drink and drive?” Oh yes, my friend, we can, although we’re too busy swinging our way to exhaustion to have more than one. After dinner, the boys go back out to the driving range to hit more balls, leaving my friends and me to marvel at the stamina of the young.
Two weeks after our Black Bear Ridge excursion, Felix gives me a high five as I sink a 12-foot putt on a Toronto city course for a par three. I have Graham to thank for that – he showed me how to use my feet to measure my swing. My game is still hit-and-miss, but when I hear a sound I can only describe as a thwock – signalling my driver has hit the ball in the sweet spot – I know my game is on the right course.
Since our Black Bear outing, a round of golf is a Sunday ritual for me and Felix. We still call a duff a “practice shot,” and we’re making new memories on the course that I will happily recall in that nursing home – like the time I hit a drive right into the golf cart, much to Felix’s amusement. Making fun of Mom never gets old.
Now, Felix drives us to the links as he practices for his driver’s test. It feels good to be in the passenger seat, even if I am teaching him to leave me in the rearview mirror. Until then, we have golf.
The Carter House, one of three luxury homes on the property where you can stay. Photo: Courtesy of Black Bear Ridge
Package Deal: The Stay + Play package offers a discount on accommodations and includes green fees for the 18-hole course and 9-hole Academy course, lunch, 50 per cent off cart rentals and access to the driving range.
