By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
I’m not a good golfer, but a golf muse? That’s another story.
In ancient Greek mythology, the Muses were nine sister goddesses who presided over the arts and sciences. Homer credited Calliope—the goddess/muse of epic poetry and eloquence—for inspiring him to write the Iliad and the Odyssey.
Back then there was no muse for golf. The Scots did not invent the game until the 1400s or even bother writing down the rules until about 1744.
Other than an occasional triumph on a putt-putt course, I did not play much golf as a kid and never took up the sport as an adult. Fatherhood, however, made me take another look at it.
As explained in my 2021 memoir Monastery Mornings, my biological father was not really present in my life. Without a proper role model, I had to create my own game plan when I became a father.
I decided one of the essential job functions of fatherhood is presence…being there with your children. I tried to do this in different but customized ways with each of our three children.
With my son Danny, one effective way to be there was through our mutual love for sports.
We kicked soccer balls around and played catch. I helped coach his little league teams and went to all his games.
I helped him field grounders. We shagged hundreds of pop flies.
We even had home run contests, just like in the MLB All-Star game. We used wiffle balls/bats, however, and out-of-the-park meant across-the-street-into-the-neighbor’s-front-yard.
My best bonding idea was setting up a miniature golf course around the house. It was no Pebble Beach or Augusta National, but it’s still my favorite venue.
We had nine holes, starting with the stone wall on the east side of our front yard. The par 3 course evolved from there.
There was the maple tree next door. The basement’s outside doorway. The wooden swing set in the backyard. The deck stairs. The downstairs window well. Back around the house to the recycling bin.
And so on.
Danny loved it. He had a kid’s plastic golf club set and I used an old club I got somewhere.
He was pretty good at it too, often making better shots than me. His game evolved from there.
A friend took him to play a wee bit at a country club in Omagh when we visited Northern Ireland. His grandfather let him drive his golf cart to a driving range in Las Vegas.
All that led to summer lessons with some classmates. They learned and played together at Salt Lake City’s Bonneville golf course, established in 1929 and now one of Utah’s most beloved courses.
During college, Danny got a summer job working at Mountain Dell golf course, which is nestled into one of Utah’s lovely alpine canyons. When he wasn’t cleaning carts or working in the pro shop, he had to watch out for moose and mountain lions.
After my work sent me to watch the Ryder Cup in September 2004 near Detroit, I was able to regale Danny with stories about Sergio Garcia or Phil Mickelson and about watching Michael Jordan follow Tiger Woods around the course. He liked my Cutter and Buck jacket with the Ryder Cup logo on it.
Danny and I played golf together a couple of times, but because I am so bad at it, we teamed up with some other father/son friends—Billy and Johnny Saccomanno. It was always fathers v. sons and for two reasons, the dads always won.
Reason one: my teammate Billy is a really good golfer (and pretty adept at inventing new golf-related swear words). We always played best ball and 98% of the time we used Billy’s shots.
Reason two: fathers are crafty, and so in one close match, we bought the sons snacks as we started to play the back nine. Danny’s and Johnny’s game deteriorated rapidly when they had Doritos dust all over their fingers.
They’d probably beat us today, which is why we refuse to play anymore.
Danny played three sports in high school at Judge Memorial—football, basketball, and lacrosse. After graduation, he told us he had wanted to play high school golf too.
I was sad we had missed those signals (and wished he had made them much a little more obvious). I vowed to watch for similar signs in the future.
After Danny earned his degree in athletic training from the University of Utah, he told me he did not want to follow the traditional vocational track for that major. I asked, “What do you want to do?”
“I want to work at and manage golf courses,” he said. “How will you make that possible?” I asked.
He had already figured out that he could get his Professional Golfer’s Association (PGA) certification and take course management classes online. We signed him up.
He has worked hard, and it took a year or two for him to launch, but in March 2026 he started his first golf career job as an assistant pro. Where? Bonneville, of course.
Danny has a long road ahead to complete his certification program and establish himself as a recognized local golf professional and manager. I’m just grateful he’s hit his first tee shot and is striding down the fairway with purpose.
I’m proud of him, so I recently gave him my Cutter and Buck 2004 Ryder Cup jacket, still in pretty good shape over twenty years later.
I doubt Danny found his vocation because he admired my golf skills. But I do like to think he may have been a little inspired— and even started to love the game—while we hit plastic golf balls across our driveway aiming for the front yard pine tree.
After all, that’s what we golf muses do.
*Mike O’Brien (author website here) is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Paraclete Press published his book Monastery Mornings, about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, in August 2021. The League of Utah Writers chose it as the best non-fiction book of 2022. Mike’s new holiday novel, tentatively titled “The Merry Matchmaker Monks,” will be published in time for Christmas 2026.
