You Couldn't Dream This Up

The death of a classmate reunited the Class of '75 again, on a day that was marked by deep reflection, hearty laughter, good golf and one mystical tee shot

We got the band back together last week. Those of us in the Richardson High School Class of 1975 have been doing a lot of that lately, for almost three years now. It started innocently enough, seven of us heading to the old gymnasium on Belt Line Road in late 2020 to watch a ridiculously talented basketball team. There was the pandemic-delayed 45th reunion in the fall of 2022. More recently, we have gathered to say goodbye to a couple of classmates we lost far too young.

We’re in our mid-60s now, at a point in life where we know these sorrowful events are inevitable. Greg Hubbard died unexpectedly in late 2022. We knew the end was coming for Steve Turner, but that didn’t make it any easier.

I racked my brain trying to think of a way to honor Steve before it finally hit me. A handful of us played a lot of golf with Steve over the years, going back to high school and before. RHS hosts an annual alumni tournament, so I reached out to golf coach Lyndal Weaver and took the liberty of telling him our class wanted to sponsor the long-drive contest. It made perfect sense. Steve was long off the tee, so long that he was the 1982 Texas Long Drive champion. Lyndal said he would happily accept whatever cash we could raise. He remembered Steve well—everybody who crossed paths with Steve remembered him well—and in fact our team had won the 2018 tournament, Steve hitting rockets all over Canyon Creek Country Club.

We announced our little ol’ grassroots campaign on social media, and it wasn’t long before the money came pouring in, donations ranging from $20 to $500. After Steve’s memorial celebration in mid-September, more than three dozen of us gathered at an establishment a couple of miles from the RHS campus. We laughed, we reflected, we toasted Steve. We convened again last Thursday night, at the Old 75 Beer Garden, which has become the official watering hole of the RHS Class of ’75. (I mean, is there a more perfect partnership?) About 30 of us huddled, this time around a couple of picnic tables. More laughter, more reflection, more toasting of Steve. And one last opportunity to pass the hat for the long-drive sponsorship.

(Greg Garner happened to be sitting at the bar. Poor Greg is Class of ’76, and he’s admittedly envious of what a good time our group always seems to have. He was quick to join the festivities and then proceeded to share a story or two about Steve.)

Friday dawned cool and breezy. It was a spectacular fall day at Firewheel Golf Park in Garland, nary a cloud overhead. I was joined on our scramble team by Dave Goscin, Tony Click and Russell Cosby. The four of us go back to elementary school, and Dave, Tony and I played with Steve on the golf team at RHS. We had a gallery, too, as classmates Dale Goode Cole, Kerrie Ivey Fielden and Cheryl Woodward Campbell, along with Steve’s wife, Carrol, tagged along. The tournament drew a solid turnout, 128 players strong, and we started with a birdie on the par-5 5th hole.

Another hole, another birdie (or eagle!) about to drop for the good guys.

Given the glacial pace of play, I’ve competed in enough of these tournaments to know what a slog they can be. But on this occasion, I couldn’t have thought of a better way to pass the time. I took advantage of one lull to tell the group how one member of our gallery who shall remain unnamed told the story of her ninth-grade date with a player in our group, how he put his arm around her in the movie theater and gently scratched her arm again and again. I know I have the details correct because she shared this information not only at our September gathering, but also again on Thursday night.

On our fifth hole, we bought the drink cart out of its Bloody Mary mix, Tony serving as assistant bartender. We were playing some good golf, too. Carrol was helping us read putts, and by the time we reached the par-5 13th, the long-drive hole, we had made six birdies and a pair of eagles. No surprise, there was a backup on the tee. We talked about Steve and snapped a picture or two.

To call Steve and Dave best friends would be an understatement. They were, in a word, inseparable. On this day, Dave was the big hitter in the group, and make no mistake: He is plenty long. For eight holes, however, it had been a struggle off the tee. The fairway finally clear, he teed his ball high and unleashed a towering draw that started over the water and worked its way back to the middle of the fairway. When he witnessed a good shot, Steve liked to say, “Sugar!” Well, this tee shot was most definitely Sugar! Down the left side of the fairway, we could see the stake marking the spot where the longest drive had come to rest, but because it was almost 300 yards away, we had no idea if Dave had eclipsed the leader. We jumped in our carts and raced down the fairway. Sure enough, his ball was a couple of paces beyond the stake. I grabbed the pencil from our cart. I couldn’t scribble Dave Goscin on the sheet fast enough.

Tony hit a missile just short of the green, and taking advantage of the one free toss each group was allotted during the round, he then lobbed his ball to kick-in distance. Another eagle. As we went on our way, my mind was racing. It wouldn’t stand up, would it? It couldn’t.

Tony manned the bar, and when it was over, we had a lot to celebrate.

We kept making birdies, along with the occasional eagle. It got so monotonous that at some point over the next couple of holes, we lost a couple members of our gallery. Where had Carrol and Dale gone? Well, the 13th was our eighth hole of the day, which meant about half the field still had a chance to unseat Dave. Carrol and Dale, bless their hearts, went back and nervously watched everyone else come through the hole.

The 13th was playing into a gentle wind when our group got there, and now the breeze was freshening. You think that was a coincidence? I don’t, either.

We finished our round with nary a par on the card—14 birdies and four eagles for a smooth 22-under-par 50. Only one of the 31 other teams went lower, and later we posed with the trophies for our second-place finish. Not bad for a quartet of old men. After we dropped our clubs at our cars, we went to pick up lunch outside the pavilion. Carrol was waiting with the news. Dave’s long drive not only held up; nobody had even threatened his prodigious blow. The two embraced in a long, tearful hug.

We walked inside to find a handful of classmates sitting at a couple of tables. None of them had played in the tournament. They were there to celebrate Steve and to support the cause. How wonderful is that?

I was asked to say a couple of words at the awards ceremony, but I didn’t start without asking all of my classmates to join me. I shared some background about Steve, about his time as a three-year letterman at RHS, about how he won the state long-drive championship way back when, about how he recorded one of his two aces on the 14th hole at Abilene Country Club … a 356-yard par-4. I noted the shot came on Sept. 2, 1983, 40 years to the day of his death. Eerie, isn’t it?

Lyndal had ordered a handful of plaques, and we presented one to Carrol. The women’s long-drive champion was duly recognized, and before I presented Dave his trophy, I said a few words about his bond with Steve. Another plaque recognizing the winners of the long-drive contest will hang in the halls of RHS. It has Steve’s name on it, of course. It will soon have Dave’s.

Imagine that: Dave Goscin is the inaugural winner of the Steve Turner Long Drive Championship. You can’t make this stuff up.

Oh, and the Class of ’75 raised $3,100 for the cause, money that primarily will be earmarked to support academic programs at RHS, with a little cash going to the golf programs. As for the memories we’ve made and will continue to make, you can’t put a dollar figure on that.

The hardware-hoarding team of (from left) Cosby, Goscin, Godich and Click.