Or it might even be a story about them and you. The story of an immigrant child who became a success thanks in large part to values and expectations of his parents and his own hard work and pride. He/They didn't have any choice.....the government wasn't providing a cradle to grave package, that came with the darling of the left PET. In those days there were no Hyphenated-Canadians!
sports columnist
Canada Day was known as Dominion Day when Gord De Laat seized the opportunity to begin a life – a wonderful life, it is – in golf.
The caddies at Lambton Golf and Country Club, that July 1, were off at a picnic celebrating this country's 60th birthday and 10-year-old Gordie was the only kid hanging around the pro shop – but not too close, because caddies knew their place.
A member named A.B. Fisher needed a bag-toter and Lambton's head pro, the legendary Willie Lamb, leaned around the corner and spotted only this little Dutch-born boy.
"I told Mr. Fisher all I could do is carry the bag and that's what I did. He played nine holes and I don't think I impressed him too much. But my career had started," De Laat remembers.
The date was July 1, 1927. Eighty years ago. Today, age 90 but still swinging the golf club awfully well, Gord De Laat, Canada's oldest working golf pro, returns to Lambton to tee it up. ("I'm pretty loose. I can still get the club back," he said and can he ever.) He hopes to play a hole or two, reminisce with the old-time members and have a picture taken. Now, how good is that?
"It's always meant so much to me, Canada Day, what we used to call Dominion Day," De Laat recalled, chatting at the Mayfield Golf Club he designed, built and still owns up in Caledon. "Even when I was born, it was about Canada and Canadians, in a way."
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