Glen Day, the professional golfer who lives in Little Rock, was in town earlier this month.
So what?
So Day's schedule is insane, that's what.
From May 20 through today, Day was at home 13 days. Right now he's at the British Senior Open at Royal Lytham and St Annes Golf Club in England.
In between, Day played in five other tournaments and spent a working week in Tokyo.
Brutal. But he did squeeze in a round at Pleasant Valley Country Club, where this newspaper hung out with him.
Call this Nine Holes with Glen Day.
NO. 10, PAR 5, 552 YARDS
Playing with Day are his father-in-law, Bob Ralston, and two friends -- Evans Dietz of Little Rock and a banker who preferred to remain unnamed because bankers shouldn't be playing golf on Tuesday morning. The group starts on No. 10, rather than the first tee, because of a ladies tournament.
All these players can really hit it, including Ralston -- aka Granddad -- who at 69 is the club pro at Stuttgart Country Club. None hits it as fluidly as Day, who does so in spite of a recent series of injuries.
"It's been a tough year," he says, and rattles off a painful list.
He pulled a tendon in his foot in a hotel bed in Naples, Fla., and couldn't walk for four days. In March, the week of the wedding of his daughter, Whitney, Day had a fall that caused traumatic tendinitis in an elbow. "That was an anchor around my neck." Later on, he had three ribs pop out of his back at a tournament in Birmingham, Ala.
"Golf," he says, "is a contact sport."
Today's game is very much about power, hitting the ball farther and farther off the tee. A pro since 1988, Day wonders how long today's young players will last. "I don't think their bodies will hold up."
NO. 11, PAR 4, 371 YARDS
"Square your shoulders," Day tells Dietz.
"They are square."
"Yeah, to the left rough."
Dietz squares up and hits a good drive. The two became friends when Dietz, who's in the window-tinting business, did some work for Day. Dietz was a tennis player in college, and he says Day is an avid tennis player.
"He said to me I'll teach you about golf if you'll teach me about tennis."
When Day was a top 50 golfer in the PGA tour, Dietz says, "he was kind of a big deal. But I never treated him that way and he never treated me that way. He was a big deal, but you would never know it. And his relationship with his kids is second to none."
Dietz would caddie for Day on occasion on the PGA tour. Dietz says nobody chipped or putted as well as Day, who hit the ball straight although not as far as other pros. It's customary for pros on the first tee to show the others which golf balls they're playing. "Glen would say, 'I'm hitting a Srixon and it's the first one you'll get to in the fairway."
NO. 12, PAR 4, 412 YARDS
Knowing how to square his shoulders must be how a kid from Poplarville, Miss., makes it to the PGA tour. Day credits determination and the divine.
"God said you're going to play golf," he says. "It also took a lot of work and a lot of time. When I was growing up if I played one day a week that was a lot."
The nearest place to play was a 9-hole course 15 miles away. Many golfers play on Sundays. Day didn't.
"If the church doors were open, you were there. I never played on Sundays."
He did manage to shoot a 45 on that 9-hole course. That was bogey golf, or one over on each hole, a score with which most recreational golfers would be happy and others delirious with joy. Day was 7. He had two lessons at 10 years old. His next lessons were at 21.
Those lessons were in Houston, with Dan Snider, later the club pro at Chenal Country Club and The Alotian Club.
"With his swing then he hit everything right to left. We changed that to left to right. He controlled the ball better and became one of the better players on tour in driving the ball into the fairway," Snider says.
NO. 13, PAR 3, 188 YARDS
Day admits to a natural aptitude for sports.
"I was as good or better baseball player," he says. "Basically, it's eye-hand coordination. I never set out as a kid to play professional golf, and I didn't watch golf on TV."
People want Day to come and see young phenoms, kids who hit the ball a mile off the tee. Day declines. That part of the game, the physical part, takes a player only so far, he says. The rest is desire.
"You can't measure the want in a man's heart."
Day played collegiately at the University of Mississippi. He admits to, at one point in college, having too much fun in a fraternity. That led to a meeting with Warner Alford, the athletic director. Alford questioned Day's commitment.
"I told him there are five guys on the golf team, and you ain't got five guys who can beat me," Day says. Boom! -- Alford tossed Day out of the athletic dorm, and he didn't play golf for nearly a year.
NO. 14, PAR 4, 429 YARDS
Into every life a little luck. Day encountered Gregg Grost, who was moving from Lamar University to the University of Oklahoma to be golf coach. Day told Grost that he didn't play golf anymore.
"He told me, 'That's stupid. You need to come play for me.'"
Day told his mother, Jeanne, about the opportunity to play at Oklahoma, but that there wouldn't be a scholarship. Day remembered what she said: "I hate that for you."
He was on his own.
Day's father died when Glen was 8 years old. He was taught about golf and growing up by his grandfather, Glyndol Bass, and Bass' friends Emery Lane, Harris Love and Bill Trimble. Bass gave Day $500 to go to Oklahoma, where Day graduated in 1988 with a degree in finance.
In retrospect, Day says, "It all worked out."
Years later, at a sports event in Mississippi, Day met up again with Alford.
"He told me, 'I am so proud of you. I can't tell you how happy I am for you and your family.'"
NO. 15, PAR 4, 440 YARDS
Glen and Jennifer Ralston-Day have two daughters, Whitney and Christina. Whitney phoned Dad while he was on the course at Pleasant Valley. "Baby Girl," he calls her.
The girls are grown now, but how does a family man reconcile with a professional golfer's life and schedule?
"You make family a priority," Day says. "For my whole career, we've never been apart for more than two weeks. I went home or they traveled with me."
Not to say the separations were easy.
"Every year on Father's Day I would ask the girls what I could do to be a better father." One year, the girls said they wished he were home more.
"Talk about something breaking your heart," Day says.
Jennifer and Glen met at the Arkansas Open tournament at Burns Park in North Little Rock. She was helping out her uncle, Steve Ralston, club pro at Burns. That was the year Day qualified for the European Tour, where he played for three years. The first year, they dated. The second year, they were engaged. The third year, they got married.
"Nothing about our lives has been conventional to the normal person because of my job," Day says.
Call Day on his cellphone and his message starts this way: "If this is my wife, I love you ..."
That's just Glen, Ralston-Day says.
"I love my wife and kids, and probably have sacrificed my career," Day says. "We could have moved to Florida," where many other pro golfers live, work and practice. "But my career has been OK. It could have been better, but it turned out the way it was supposed to."
"He's as good a husband and father as I know," Snider says, "a really strong family man and strong in his faith. I think that leads him to be with the right people all the time and do the right thing all the time."
Bob Ralston, Granddad, has good words for Day.
"He is a 100%-plus good father," Ralson says. "He has a great attitude toward family life. And he would help anybody in the world if he can do it."
It hasn't been all roses -- Jennifer had a miscarriage years ago, a pregnancy between Whitney and Christina.
"Things happen and you have to handle it," Day says. "The game of golf mirrors life. Today on the first tee I might think this is my day. But then I hit my tee shot to the right into the woods and it's all downhill. What are you going to do -- quit? Short answer is no.
"I'm no saint, by the way. I'm no perfect husband and don't claim to be. I'm not the best golfer, either, so instead of searching for perfection I'm searching for persistence."
NO. 16, PAR 4, 402 YARDS
The cart path from No. 15 to No. 16 passes by the driving range, where players practice persistence.
"I see an 8-year-old and an 80-year old," Day says. That's one of golf's virtues -- it can be played for most of a lifetime. That's a tougher call nowadays in Little Rock, where the city has closed War Memorial and Hindman golf courses. The city still runs courses at Rebsamen and First Tee.
"Golf is a tough sell in Arkansas," Day says. "A great idea would have been to turn War Memorial into a 9-hole course.
"I hate to see the sport suffer. These decisions were made by nongolfers who don't know the impact the sport can have on a kid. I understand the money, but I believe there are other factors to consider."
NO. 17, PAR 3, 210 YARDS
At 53, and playing professionally in a sport so cruelly competitive, Day is driving uphill. Every year brings a new wave of pros who turn 50 and choose to play on the senior tour.
This year's senior rookies included Paul Lawrie (a former British Open champion), Shaun Micheel (a former PGA Championship winner), Retief Goosen (twice a U.S. Open champion), and Angel Cabrera (a former Masters and U.S. Open champion).
Day looks down the road.
"If you get to be 60 and can still be competitive, that would be good," he says.
Dietz thinks Day can last that long, depending on golf's aches and pains. Nor is that life glamorous, Dietz says. Mostly, it's a grind. Day describes most nights on the road as "a motel and three restaurants."
"For him, [it] all depends on injuries," Snider concurs. "If he goes injury free" he can compete that long.
Failure to be decisive is, in Day's experience, the most common mistake in golf. That's followed by a failure to chose the right shot. A golfer has options on almost every shot. Hit it right, hit it left, over the trouble, or around the trouble?
The 17th is where Day demonstrates. He chooses a 4-iron and, avoiding the sand trap that guards the flag on the right side, hits the ball a bit left and onto the elevated green. The high, arching shot lands safely and securely on the green.
Dietz quotes from the gospel of Glen: "You made a good, aggressive swing."
NO. 18, PAR 5, 531 YARDS
It's a fine finishing hole, No. 18, with water hugging the left fairway, sand near the green and plenty of distance. The talk turns to the great Jack Nicklaus, with whom, Day says, he has played hundreds of rounds.
Got a good Nicklaus story?
Jennifer and Glen were at the family's condo in Florida. Day was out playing golf with Nicklaus and when he got home Jennifer was unwell and worried. She'd endured the miscarriage and was now pregnant with Christina. Day called the Nicklaus home and asked Nicklaus where the nearest hospital was. He drove Jennifer there, dropped her at the ER and parked.
"Before I could get out of the car and into the emergency room, there was Barbara Nicklaus," Jack's wife.
"Everyone knows about the accomplishments," Day says. "But that says all you need to know about the people."
Day's third golf tip is to not be too aggressive on the greens. He's on the 18th green in three shots. He lines up his putt from about 20 feet and drops it in for birdie.
Ralston and Day have another story. It goes back to 1992 and the wedding of Jennifer and Glen -- a wedding they say they weren't sure how to pay for. Right before the wedding Ralston and Day played in a pro/pro Calcutta tournament in Missouri. In golf, Calcutta essentially means money to win. Or money -- your money -- to lose.
The Ralston/Day team was behind going into the last day, but shot 9 strokes under par to win. They put their winnings into a pillow case and used the cash to pay for the wedding, Day says.
"To this day, we still don't know how much money was in that sack."
SELF PORTRAIT
• DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: Nov. 11, 1965, Mobile, Ala. I grew up in Poplarville, Miss.
• I DRIVE A: Brand new Ford F-150 bought in 1999. It now has 170,000 miles.
• MY WIFE DRIVES A: 2019 Tahoe.
• THE LAST BOOKS I'VE READ: The Innocent Man by John Grisham and The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel.
• BEST BOOK ABOUT GOLF: Seven Days in Utopia by David L. Cook and anything by Bob Rotella.
• MOST COMMON MISTAKE OF GOLFERS: Being indecisive before a shot.
• FOUR GUESTS AT MY FANTASY DINNER PARTY: Glyndol Bass (my grandfather), Emery Lane, Harris Love and Bill Trimble (all his friends), the men who taught me about golf and life from age 9-14.
• MY ADVICE TO A STRUGGLING GOLFER: Golf is a four-letter word for a reason. It beats you up daily. To succeed in this game you have to keep fighting, because you never know what day it will change for the better.
• ONE WORD TO SUM ME UP: Blessed
High Profile on 07/28/2019