Gator Country

UF men's golf coach Buddy Alexander looks on at the Mercedes-Benz Collegiate Championship at the Sawgrass Country Club on Feb. 6, 2006 in Ponte Vedra / Gator Country photo by Tim Casey

Thursday afternoon, if everything goes to plan, Buddy Alexander will have a chance to walk in the U.S. Open gallery at Bethpage State Park in Farmingdale, N.Y., and beam with pride while cheering for one of his Florida Gators.

The Florida men’s golf coach, who twice has walked inside the ropes as a participant in American golf’s national championship, and wife Joan will stroll the 18 holes of the par-70, 7,445-yard Bethpage Black course and watch as 20-year-old Tyson Alexander, the son of Buddy and first wife Jane, make the Alexander family only the second three-generation Open family. The Herrons – grandfather Carson Lee, father Carson and son Tim, a PGA Tour player – are the other three-generation U.S. Open family.

Since the United States Golf Association stopped playing 36 holes on the final day, the final 18 holes of the U.S. Open have fallen on Father’s Day. There could be no finer gift for Buddy Alexander than to have his son Tyson, who begins his first U.S. Open on the first tee at 2:31 p.m. ET, playing on Father’s Day.

But the father isn’t pressuring the son, as the Alexanders told Florida sports information assistant Daniel Apple before departing for Long Island.

“It might be best if Tyson doesn’t have any goals going in,” Buddy Alexander said. “Just to go in there and try to prepare as best as you can, stay in the moment as best as you can and realize that this is an unbelievable learning opportunity for him.”

Tyson Alexander wants to soak it all in. “I just want to go play good golf,” he said. “I don’t really have expectations. I’m not going to just make the cut or do certain things. I just want to play well and see where that stacks up.”

Family matters, after all, in the U.S. Open.

In 1980, Jack Nicklaus celebrated his Father’s Day by winning the U.S. Open at Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield, N.J., and then taking his wife Barbara and youngest son Michael to a nearby McDonald’s for a celebratory meal.

In 1999, a year after losing a four-shot lead and the U.S. Open at the Olympic Club where his late father Bill had played in the 1955 Open, Payne Stewart sank the winning putt at Pinehurst No. 2 and then cradled runner-up Phil Mickelson’s head in his hands and shouted, ‘’You’re going to be a Daddy!” to remind Lefty he was to receive the best Father’s Day prize of them all – he and wife Amy’s first child, a daughter born the following day. Sadly, four months later, Stewart died in a tragic plane crash.

The only thing better, of course, for the Alexanders would have been if Skip Alexander, Buddy’s father and Tyson’s grandfather, were alive to share in the moment. Skip, a promising PGA Tour member after World War II, played in six U.S. Opens, five of them before a tragic plane crash ended his playing career. The eldest Alexander died almost 12 years ago but not until he had put an 8-iron in Tyson’s hands and made him hit shot after shot with it from 50 yards for 45 minutes.

“I thought it was the dumbest thing,” Tyson said. “But he obviously knew what he was talking about.”

Skip played in U.S. Opens from 1946 through 1950, finishing as high as 11th in the 1948 tournament at Riviera Country Club in California. Following the plane crash, Alexander had 22 surgeries but struggled to walk and he had his fingers permanently fused so he could grip a golf club. He came back to qualify for the U.S. Open in 1954 but eventually became a club professional.

His son Buddy, who was born in St. Petersburg in 1953, graduated from Georgia Southern and played on the PGA Tour before becoming a college coach at his alma mater and then Louisiana State. Two years before coming to Florida, Buddy won the 1986 U.S. Amateur, which put him in the 1987 field at the Olympic Club. Fifteen years ago, he was in the Open field at Oakmont. He missed the cut in both but was able to share the experience with his father.

“My dad was a tough, old school kind of guy,” Buddy Alexander said. “Most of what Tyson has seen, I learned from him (his father). My dad was an outstanding player, he was an outstanding teacher, he knew a lot about how to play the game and he had a great deal of experience. I still miss him. … He taught me so much about how to play golf, and about the game itself, and about life itself. Hopefully, I’ve passed along those positives to Tyson.”

Buddy Alexander need not worry about that. Like grandfather, like father, like son.

Take advantage of the Gator Country Father’s Day Special and treat your Dad to his own membership for half price.

http://www.gatorcountry.com/football/article/give_the_perfect_fathers_day_gift/6558

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