Speaker 1: Pushkin horrible timing six kids in my house, two parents
Speaker 1: and getting kids ready for Halloween. Jonathan Goldstein calling for
Speaker 1: doctor Jackie Cohen.
Speaker 2: I gotta go.
Speaker 1: Wait wait, wait, hello Jackie.
Speaker 3: Do you know what?
Speaker 1: Okay, you're a doctor, right, hurry up. I'm starting to realize,
Speaker 1: like in the past year, I'm I'm hurry. I'm pretty convinced. Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm losing hair. You're bald, balding, bald. It's a process,
Speaker 1: so bald. Now I'm trying to figure out if it's
Speaker 1: a symptom of something to go, John, I got to go.
Speaker 1: The party starts in fifteen minutes. You're having a party
Speaker 1: at your house. Why didn't you invite me over? Do
Speaker 1: you want to just do the show? Or from Gimblet Media.
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight Today's episode. James.
Speaker 1: When he was a kid, James loved taking long walks
Speaker 1: with his dad, Douglas. Douglas was a film buff, and
Speaker 1: during these walks, he'd recount the plot to every movie
Speaker 1: he'd ever seen. Hitchcock Kubrick. James loved it, and when
Speaker 1: he grew older and finally got to see the actual
Speaker 1: movies as good as they were, They often paled beside
Speaker 1: the versions his dad told something of a dreamer and
Speaker 1: an eccentric. Douglas lived his life as though he himself
Speaker 1: were a character in a movie. He died that way too.
Speaker 1: On his deathbed, he issued an unexpected final request.
Speaker 4: The request was that we scatter his ashes on the
Speaker 4: eighteenth hole of the golf course he loved.
Speaker 1: Each of Douglas's kids was handed a different task regarding
Speaker 1: the estate. James was put in charge of the ashes.
Speaker 4: My dad was probably the most important person to me
Speaker 4: outside obviously my wife and kids. When he died and
Speaker 4: when the will was recorded, I wasn't there. You were
Speaker 4: actually there.
Speaker 1: I think I was there. Douglas was nearing the end
Speaker 1: and urgently needed to sign his will, and James, who
Speaker 1: lived out of town, couldn't make it in time, so
Speaker 1: he asked me and our other good friend Howard, to
Speaker 1: go to his father's bedside and bear legal witness to
Speaker 1: the signing of the will. To this day, James still
Speaker 1: carries around a lot of regret about not being able
Speaker 1: to be there, Although I know it's unlikely. My memory
Speaker 1: of that day is of Douglas wearing an ascot tucked
Speaker 1: into his hospital robe, regardless of whether he actually was.
Speaker 1: Douglas was the kind of man who always gave the
Speaker 1: impression of wearing an ascot. As always he was gentlemanly
Speaker 1: and cordial, this in spite of the fact that he
Speaker 1: would pass away within the next forty eight hours. Douglas
Speaker 1: was born an illegitimate child in a poor part of
Speaker 1: England and raised by a single mom. As a young man,
Speaker 1: he felt judged and carried with him the feeling of
Speaker 1: always having to prove himself, even going so far as
Speaker 1: to effect a posh, upper class accent. For Douglas, golf
Speaker 1: was the domain of the wealthy and sophisticated, and having
Speaker 1: his ashes placed on the eighteenth hole of his beloved
Speaker 1: golf course, an event that James says he probably envisioned
Speaker 1: being accompanied by bagpipes and artillery, would mean finally receiving
Speaker 1: his due. But James has yet to honor his father's request.
Speaker 1: It's now been sixteen years. Is it just procrastination?
Speaker 4: That's what I told myself. Yeah, I can vividly remember,
Speaker 4: you know, a day afterwards, thinking oh, yeah, the simplest thing.
Speaker 4: In fact, it seems so simple that we'll get to it.
Speaker 4: And now sixteen years later. It's very complicated, I think,
Speaker 4: to be honest with you, there's part of me that
Speaker 4: wants to hold on to them because it's.
Speaker 1: My dad. And so the earn moved from mantles to
Speaker 1: closets for a long time. It even knocked around in
Speaker 1: the trunk of James's car. It now sits on a
Speaker 1: shelf in his basement. Do you think it would be uh,
Speaker 1: would it be a load off your head if you
Speaker 1: were able to spread the ashes?
Speaker 4: The amount of times I cried, you know, going on
Speaker 4: about how what a terrible son I was to not
Speaker 4: honor his request, and the guilt I have about the
Speaker 4: way he died, and you know I didn't deal with
Speaker 4: it well, and it's all a piece he as he
Speaker 4: got sicker and sticker. He wanted to go home desperately,
Speaker 4: and myself and my siblings decided he could not go
Speaker 4: home because he was a hoarder.
Speaker 1: Though it wasn't clear that he ever used them. Douglas
Speaker 1: had an entire room filled solely with golf clubs, having
Speaker 1: lived through the war. He also saved empty TV dinner trays,
Speaker 1: old microwaves, and broken radios that he'd find on the street.
Speaker 4: We decided he could not go back there, and he
Speaker 4: was so upset about that, and he went out just.
Speaker 1: Really angry.
Speaker 4: He just wanted to go home. I can't fix the
Speaker 4: way he died, but this was his one request and
Speaker 4: I haven't honored it. And not only would I be
Speaker 4: putting to bed something that's been just dogging me for years,
Speaker 4: I think I'd also feel pretty proud of myself that
Speaker 4: I'm the person I want to be.
Speaker 1: Since the person I want to be is the person
Speaker 1: who helps people be the people they want to be.
Speaker 1: I asked James if he'd like me to help him
Speaker 1: lay his father's ashes to rest, and James said, yes,
Speaker 1: would you want to do that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, of course I do.
Speaker 1: The objective infiltrate Douglas's fancy old golf course and scatter
Speaker 1: the ashes the obstacles except the genarian narcs with prying eyes,
Speaker 1: not to mention the fact that scattering earthly remains is
Speaker 1: against the law. For this to work, we need the
Speaker 1: right team. James was the key man, our entry point
Speaker 1: into the operation, and I was the bank bank rolling
Speaker 1: the green for expenditures. All that was missing was a
Speaker 1: front man. We needed a person of quick wit back
Speaker 1: bat cat, sat fat, someone cool under pressure. We needed
Speaker 1: that's arm here. Howard. Not only was Howard our oldest friend,
Speaker 1: but he was there with me the day the will
Speaker 1: was signed and the directive was given. And to top
Speaker 1: it off, Howard never met a grift, swindle or flim flam.
Speaker 1: He didn't think was eggs and the coffee. Okay, fill
Speaker 1: your pockets with extra after dinner mints at the local diner.
Speaker 1: Check avail yourself. Avill gained coffee refills through a counterfeit
Speaker 1: Russian Seniors card double check. Howard was always on the
Speaker 1: make and up for anything. The date had been set Sunday,
Speaker 1: which also, as it happens, was Father's Day. The team
Speaker 1: was in place. We just needed to sort out logistics.
Speaker 1: Thursday eight forty eight pm. Howard, Hey, Hi, Hi, Hi, Hello, Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm on the phone with James.
Speaker 4: Hi.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to get us all together to strategize
Speaker 1: a little bit. So, Howard, is there any wisdom or
Speaker 1: experience that you could bring to bear from you know,
Speaker 1: past things that you've done like this.
Speaker 2: From my previous heist experience. Yeah, well we shouldn't do
Speaker 2: as we get too high. Yeah, in one some booze
Speaker 2: maybe might help steal our nerves.
Speaker 1: So do you want to try to go there and
Speaker 1: play golf?
Speaker 2: No, I've never golfed.
Speaker 3: I don't know how to golf, so I've never golfed either.
Speaker 3: And it's the eighteenth hole too, so I wish it
Speaker 3: was the first hole because we could just go and
Speaker 3: suck and then do our thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it simply needs the eighteenth hole.
Speaker 3: Right, eighteenth hole, it's a last hole.
Speaker 2: But if there's someone there watching us, how we how
Speaker 2: do we do it?
Speaker 3: The clubhouse is near the eighteenth hole. It looks over
Speaker 3: at eighteenth sole, so that's another challenge.
Speaker 2: What the clubhouse?
Speaker 1: Clearly there was a lot of work to be done.
Speaker 1: Nine pm. A quick look at the golf course website
Speaker 1: reveals a very specific dress code polo shirts, belts, golf shoes,
Speaker 1: something called a tilly hat. If wearing a polo shirt
Speaker 1: with some kind of bonnet wasn't embarrassing enough, the rules
Speaker 1: explicitly stated that all shirts were to be tucked in
Speaker 1: to your pants. For this to work, we need to
Speaker 1: honor the dress code to a t. In short, we
Speaker 1: need the best disguises money could buy. And as the bank,
Speaker 1: it was my job to secure the Greenbacks a brief
Speaker 1: parlay with Gimblet founder and CEO Alex Bloomberg. I'm told
Speaker 1: my budget is fifty dollars, to which I say, but
Speaker 1: I've already promised the crew I take them shopping at
Speaker 1: j C. Penny and now I'll look like an idiot,
Speaker 1: to which he says what crew, and I say never mind.
Speaker 1: Alex then tells me to take it up with Matt
Speaker 1: because he's in the middle of a boardroom meeting. But
Speaker 1: Matt scares me, so I just convert the green to
Speaker 1: Canadian travelers checks, a safe, responsible move. So Alex, if
Speaker 1: you're listening, you should at least cover the service fees.
Speaker 1: Except you probably aren't listening because you're too busy with
Speaker 1: your precious startup. So although it probably wasn't the kind
Speaker 1: of establishment James's Poshdad Douglas would approve of, we'd need
Speaker 1: to hit the only place we could afford. Please after you,
Speaker 1: all right, Friday, twelve thirty six pm. It turns out
Speaker 1: the sports section of a goodwill can be a pretty
Speaker 1: sad place. Unstrung badminton rackets, water logged nerf footballs you
Speaker 1: only hope are logged on water.
Speaker 2: And one boxing glove.
Speaker 4: That's that's the.
Speaker 1: As an advanced student of the heist film as genre,
Speaker 1: I know that when pulling off a big job, the
Speaker 1: perfect outfit is crucial. Think Michael Kine's lux white turtleneck
Speaker 1: in The Italian Job or Elliott Gould's neckerchief in Ocean's Eleven.
Speaker 4: They have some very nice slacks here, I will say,
Speaker 4: and the prices are very affordable.
Speaker 1: You want to try on the polo shirts, not exactly
Speaker 1: Frankie Munez is wrap around shades and agent Cody Banks,
Speaker 1: but it'll have to do.
Speaker 2: Look at these two.
Speaker 1: Ooh, it's like rayon. The good news is that the
Speaker 1: Goodwill has changing rooms. The bad news is that there's
Speaker 1: only one, and it's about the size of a bus
Speaker 1: station toilet stall. I'm going to come in with you,
Speaker 1: but since we are a a team and be absolutely
Speaker 1: fearless together, we cram in and like any team would
Speaker 1: strip completely naked.
Speaker 2: That might be the I.
Speaker 1: It bears, mentioning that the shirt Howard is referring to
Speaker 1: is creamsicle orange and bears the logo of a plumbing company,
Speaker 1: and luckiest of lucky days, he's found the exact same
Speaker 1: shirts for me. And James this way. He reasons, we
Speaker 1: can all match like a crew.
Speaker 2: It's supposed to look good.
Speaker 5: It's golfing.
Speaker 1: Oh man, Howard, James and I have known each other
Speaker 1: since we're teenagers. Back then we used to hang out
Speaker 1: like this all the time, just doing goofy stuff. But
Speaker 1: we now live in separate cities with wives, kids, jobs,
Speaker 1: and we never get to do this kind of thing anymore.
Speaker 1: Standing around in the middle of the afternoon, laughing in
Speaker 1: the buff with old friends feels nice. So this is good.
Speaker 4: We got We've got shirts, and I got a belt.
Speaker 1: As we exit into the parking lot are plastic sacks
Speaker 1: plump with glad rags. Something straight up magical happens.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Before getting too excited about what we think we might
Speaker 1: be seeing, possibly, we wait confirmation from the man who
Speaker 1: can spot a con a mile off a double rainbow.
Speaker 1: It's legit a double rainbow. And even Howard's impressed mildly,
Speaker 1: and so James and I give ourselves over Fully overcome
Speaker 1: by this fortuitous sign, the crew was moved to song.
Speaker 5: So its red and purple and crimson and green apple and.
Speaker 1: A rainbow was a good omen Like James's dad, Douglas
Speaker 1: was looking down on us and smiling a big, multicolored
Speaker 1: upside down smile, and Jen Blue. Sure we were dressed
Speaker 1: to the eighteens, but if we each took forty five
Speaker 1: minutes to sink a ball from two feet away, we
Speaker 1: might attract suspicion. We needed to train hard. I'm talking
Speaker 1: rocky running through waist high Russian snow hard, a montage
Speaker 1: of steel drum musicians learning to play Chariots of Fire
Speaker 1: set to the tune of Ayah the Tiger hard. I'm
Speaker 1: talking actually learning how to play golf. We find a
Speaker 1: driving range in the fancier part of town and book
Speaker 1: a golf pro by the name of Stephen. Saturday, one pm.
Speaker 1: Are you Stephen, Hey, Stephen, I'm Jonathan, This is Howard,
Speaker 1: and this is James. This is Stephen. Stephen a smile
Speaker 1: with more dimples than the golf balls. He lovingly cradles
Speaker 1: a tall drink of sports aqua velva ou de toilette
Speaker 1: if ever there was Stephen's been golfing professionally for over
Speaker 1: twenty years and couldn't be nicer or better. Smelling and
Speaker 1: considering the frantic barrage of imbecilic questions, we ask he
Speaker 1: also couldn't be more patient.
Speaker 5: Those official call shoes. Yeah, well, I want good questions
Speaker 5: and stupid what a golfers think about?
Speaker 2: Like happy gilmore like mo like that. They find that
Speaker 2: they find it insulting.
Speaker 1: After a brief lecture on the basic how to's hit
Speaker 1: ball with stick, cold stick, with hands, get ball in hole,
Speaker 1: we're ready, we insist James go first. After all, this
Speaker 1: is his mission. What we want of these really is
Speaker 1: finish it.
Speaker 4: Just like this.
Speaker 2: Yere, we're gonna get to the well.
Speaker 1: Stephen tenderly positions James hips and elbows. Howard grabs my
Speaker 1: microphone and golf commentates.
Speaker 5: I'd say he looks really really horrible.
Speaker 6: It's just ridiculous looking. I'm not encouraging.
Speaker 1: Somehow, James manages to connect on his very first try.
Speaker 1: That's good.
Speaker 2: Everyone's saying very encouraging things.
Speaker 7: But it's really horrible just the same.
Speaker 2: But he got it.
Speaker 1: It went in the air and he hit it.
Speaker 5: It's like you say to a child's.
Speaker 1: Good you hit it. Stephen looks over at Howard, who
Speaker 1: now squats in the grass, untying and retying his two
Speaker 1: left footed Goodwill issued golf shoes and then he looks
Speaker 1: over at me, a grown man in a two large
Speaker 1: tilly hat, strings cinched tight enough beneath the chin to
Speaker 1: ensure the clenched, jawed vocal affect of a young Katherine Hepburn.
Speaker 1: He waives us to come hither, offering up something in
Speaker 1: the way of inspiration.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna try to make it go from right to left.
Speaker 4: It must feel really good when you get it up
Speaker 4: in the air like that.
Speaker 2: Well, it's great because that's the goal, right, is to
Speaker 2: get it up.
Speaker 1: The golf ball flies straight up into the air, and then,
Speaker 1: as though eerily achieving human consciousness in mid flight, suddenly
Speaker 1: takes a sharp left. Wah so cool. Howard, baptized in
Speaker 1: the backsplash of Stephen's pheromones, is born again. He's seen
Speaker 1: the pinnacle of male perfection. And James, it is not see.
Speaker 2: James, that's what it looks like. That's when a man
Speaker 2: hits a golf ball.
Speaker 5: A male of the species is a golf ball.
Speaker 1: Next up is Howard. He steps to the tee, grips
Speaker 1: the club, and just the way Stephen instructed, does this
Speaker 1: adorable waddle back and forth to get his footing just so,
Speaker 1: And then did you hear that, Let me play it
Speaker 1: again thrice. A swing and a miss, A swing and
Speaker 1: a miss, A swing and a miss.
Speaker 3: That's too much a little bit if you're losing your
Speaker 3: balance between fast. The first twenty five.
Speaker 1: Years are tough, oh, Steven, all this and funny too.
Speaker 1: My attempts were just as fruitless. As it turns out.
Speaker 1: Golf is hard. We wonder if Douglas knew just how
Speaker 1: difficult a mission he'd sent us on.
Speaker 4: How would do we do without a golf pro standing
Speaker 4: there helping us?
Speaker 1: You know the difference between golf clubs, and.
Speaker 4: There's a wet Oh I don't, not really, I mean
Speaker 4: I know it's a.
Speaker 5: Ledge driver, putterer one iron, two iron, three iron, pudder
Speaker 5: driver pudder.
Speaker 2: One.
Speaker 1: Nine am. It's the night before the job, and the
Speaker 1: reality of our situation begins to set in. How can
Speaker 1: any sting be stung when the would be stingers absolutely
Speaker 1: stink at golf. Clearly this plan wasn't going to work,
Speaker 1: and so at a quarter to two in the morning,
Speaker 1: panic set in.
Speaker 2: It's impossible. It's impossible for us to play golf. We
Speaker 2: would suck so hard we would never make it off.
Speaker 2: The first fucking hole and if we knocked the balls anywhere.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm with you.
Speaker 2: It's like learning how to fucking juggle. It's like it's
Speaker 2: it's an incredibly impossible thing to do. It's gonna be
Speaker 2: so obvious that there's something's up because we've never fucking golfed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the issue. If we're doing any sort of subterfuge,
Speaker 3: we're gonna be the most obvious conspicuous.
Speaker 2: People in the world, vicious.
Speaker 3: And then we'll have to get all the way to
Speaker 3: the eighteenth holl That takes hours, literally hours, even if
Speaker 3: you're good, literally and then try to with the ashes
Speaker 3: out forget it.
Speaker 1: Two fifteen am. Do you guys know what? Stomp rockets
Speaker 1: are growing desperate, we chuck the old plan and begin
Speaker 1: to free associate new plans.
Speaker 3: We did a T shirt cannon. Well you know actually
Speaker 3: that that could work.
Speaker 1: Three zho five am.
Speaker 2: What if we dumped them into say, like a balloon
Speaker 2: and then filled it with water and then whip them
Speaker 2: so they'll explode all on the eighteenth green and that's it.
Speaker 1: This was going nowhere. So I raised the possibility of
Speaker 1: our pulling off a night job for those of you
Speaker 1: squares who need to be hept to it. That's a
Speaker 1: job one performs at night.
Speaker 2: I think they might have dogs. What if they think
Speaker 2: we're like terrorists or something super super posh exclusive club
Speaker 2: going late at night with someone's human remains, which is
Speaker 2: fucking totally illegal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean they must have some sort of security there.
Speaker 1: Well a hundred percent the sun was coming up soon,
Speaker 1: So I suggest that, like in Dog Day Afternoon or
Speaker 1: Reservoir Dogs, or really any other movies about dogs that
Speaker 1: I've also not seen but can only assume have happy,
Speaker 1: heartwarming endings, maybe we just show up during the day
Speaker 1: and hope for the best. This idea, Okay, that works
Speaker 1: for me, they liked. After the break the a team
Speaker 1: of golf sets off on its mission.
Speaker 2: Oh, I want to be golf lung win and you
Speaker 2: can be mister t t e R. Gotcha.
Speaker 1: I want one of mine?
Speaker 2: You just know it's wedge. Your your Reginald van cleef.
Speaker 5: Yous want to drink Scotch yet?
Speaker 1: Maybe on ice? Sure?
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Sunday eight ten am, Father's Day arrives, a beautiful one
Speaker 1: in Montreal. Janie says it's a lot like the day
Speaker 1: Douglas died. We all rendezvous at the safe house, which
Speaker 1: also happens to be Howard's wreck room. James has held
Speaker 1: on to his dad's urn for sixteen years, but he's
Speaker 1: always kept it in the velvet bag it came with,
Speaker 1: so he's never actually handled it. Earlier in the day, though,
Speaker 1: in anticipation of the job, he withdrew it. And if
Speaker 1: there was any question about just how much Douglas loved golf,
Speaker 1: it was immediately answered by what was revealed. Etched into
Speaker 1: the side of the urn was a golfer in mid swing.
Speaker 5: It hears to you, Dad, don't think some of Brussy's
Speaker 5: poop bags that are actually uncented, which is kind of nice.
Speaker 5: We're going to use these to chants for some of
Speaker 5: James's beloved's father's ash isn't here.
Speaker 1: Howard had the idea of using his pugs poop bags
Speaker 1: to separate the ashes into portions for each of us.
Speaker 1: His reasoning, should one of us get pinched by some
Speaker 1: golf clubhouse Johnny Law, the two surviving members of the
Speaker 1: crew could still carry out the job.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, this is so strange.
Speaker 1: Oh I want a business.
Speaker 3: I don't know what a business. I definitely what a
Speaker 3: fucking business.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm glad you've got I'm glad, I'm I've had
Speaker 4: a couple drinks, still getting off. I don't know, but
Speaker 4: I'm really glad you guys are doing this with me,
Speaker 4: You're part of this thing. For sixteen years, there was
Speaker 4: there was this sort of fear that I wouldn't be
Speaker 4: able to handle dealing with it, the physicality of it.
Speaker 4: But if if there's something I'm now grateful for it,
Speaker 4: and I wonder if there was some wisdom in it,
Speaker 4: is that he has compelled me to deal with this.
Speaker 1: I've never cursed him for it.
Speaker 4: But I've been angry. I've never been angry, but I've
Speaker 4: been I don't know what the word is, sort of
Speaker 4: like fuck. You know, you couldn't just go without, you
Speaker 4: couldn't just die. You had to make this somewhat absurd,
Speaker 4: ridiculous request that was impractical and almost impossible to achieve.
Speaker 4: But I'm right saying right now kind of almost grateful
Speaker 4: for it. So let's uh, let's hope, let's hope we're
Speaker 4: successful today.
Speaker 1: Eight twenty five am.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: As we set off on the job, Howard shows doubts
Speaker 1: about his outfit.
Speaker 2: I look like a fat failure of a dentist.
Speaker 5: I looked like I lost my practice because I put
Speaker 5: dentures in a child's mouth.
Speaker 1: As we near the golf course, James grows silent, Am
Speaker 1: I have part in a space?
Speaker 5: All right?
Speaker 1: Good show? How are you feeling nervous? I'm going to
Speaker 1: park near here, just for a quick getaway from the
Speaker 1: parking lot. We wind our way towards the green. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's testament to a tillie had cocked at just the
Speaker 1: right angle. But nobody seems to be stopping us. We
Speaker 1: have infiltrated, like how manicured it is.
Speaker 5: It's like it's like it looks like like a pool table,
Speaker 5: as it was a pile of ashes there in the middle.
Speaker 1: The golf course is what you'd expect, green grass as
Speaker 1: far as the eye can see, trees, ponds, It's beauty,
Speaker 1: full and under normal circumstances, it'd make us feel peaceful like,
Speaker 1: but just now it's making us feel out of place,
Speaker 1: reminding us of who we are. Three frightened middle aged
Speaker 1: men dressed in discarded plumbing company uniforms, struggling under the
Speaker 1: weight of our bulky knapsacks and a mission that just
Speaker 1: now feels too big. For us, I don't should we
Speaker 1: just try to go to the eighteenth hole or should
Speaker 1: we go in? And that's I believe that's it isn't.
Speaker 1: As it turns out, the eighteenth hole is the whole
Speaker 1: nearest the parking lot. That red flag is your destination
Speaker 1: screen of.
Speaker 4: The eighteenth hole, and that is it. It is the
Speaker 4: most conspicuous hole. So thanks a lot that Right now,
Speaker 4: right now, we're going to watch even now living one.
Speaker 1: We just to play it cool case the joint. We
Speaker 1: make our way to the ninth hole, which is out
Speaker 1: of view, and it's here that fear sets in and
Speaker 1: with it bargaining.
Speaker 4: The ninth hole, Dad, right here be perfect. I could
Speaker 4: go with the whole earned dump it. Maybe he liked
Speaker 4: the screen, he liked the whole, he liked the whole
Speaker 4: golf course.
Speaker 3: It wasn't his.
Speaker 4: But I know this is the back nine.
Speaker 1: I know he liked the bat next denial.
Speaker 2: That's my question.
Speaker 5: Why don't your dad, who is an avid golfer, who's
Speaker 5: probably really really serious for those games, why would he want.
Speaker 2: To put his ashes on the green which would interfere
Speaker 2: with another golfers.
Speaker 1: I suggest we cool our heels in the clubhouse. And
Speaker 1: the boys agree. It turns out that that evening is
Speaker 1: a Father's Day banquet, so the staff is rushing to prepare,
Speaker 1: which allows us to wander around relatively unnoticed. The club
Speaker 1: goes back about one hundred years, and on the walls
Speaker 1: are hung old brown and white photos and plaques commemorating
Speaker 1: the members who've died fighting in both World Wars. Since
Speaker 1: almost the start of our mission, James had expressed a
Speaker 1: fear that maybe no one at the club would even
Speaker 1: remember his dad. Douglas was just such a loner that
Speaker 1: over the years James had never met any of his friends.
Speaker 1: As far as he knew, he didn't really have any
Speaker 1: There was a lot about his dad he didn't know,
Speaker 1: like whether he was even any good at golf. So
Speaker 1: we was hoping he might find some small trace of
Speaker 1: him here, a photo, or even his name on a
Speaker 1: list somewhere. Oh the registreet we find a large, old
Speaker 1: looking book that lists every champion in the course's history. Wow,
Speaker 1: it goes back to nineteen oh three.
Speaker 4: Passage and Williamson. I mean, I'm sure he's probably documented
Speaker 4: in some books somewhere. It's just, of course I'll find it.
Speaker 1: Do you want to check that book. Did you look
Speaker 1: through willis?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I didn't see any of her.
Speaker 1: Since the book won't talk, we look for someone who will.
Speaker 1: We stop every staff member and golfer who looks old
Speaker 1: enough and ask if they remember Douglas.
Speaker 3: I'm saying it was Douglas.
Speaker 4: Sarch the past away in two thousand, were hoping to
Speaker 4: find some sort of inside of him.
Speaker 1: Fight.
Speaker 3: The name is a ring a bell. Doug was Hirst
Speaker 3: a long time ago. People who remember and I played
Speaker 3: six in the morning.
Speaker 2: So the only guys I know are the grass.
Speaker 1: I didn't know him yet, No Dice until Doug Hurst.
Speaker 7: You guys knew him.
Speaker 5: Sure, that's his son.
Speaker 1: In a basement room, squeezed into an armchair watching golf
Speaker 1: on TV is Serge. A French Canadian bulldog of a man.
Speaker 1: He pours fistfuls of mixed nuts into his mouth, which
Speaker 1: he washes down with generous slugs from his beer.
Speaker 2: Cruizy dog.
Speaker 3: That's you.
Speaker 1: Through the half jar of fancy cocktail nuts crammed into
Speaker 1: his grizzled maw. You might not be able to understand
Speaker 1: the words Sarge is desperately trying to choke out. He's
Speaker 1: saying crazy Doug. Crazy Doug is his nickname for James's dad. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm so glad I found someone who remember him.
Speaker 5: We asked a few people and not too many, you'll know,
Speaker 5: Bambernham help me find in maybe a staff member who
Speaker 5: had been here a while that no one knew a
Speaker 5: lot of You know, I'm him very well.
Speaker 4: So is he a good golf player?
Speaker 1: Was he good?
Speaker 6: It was a good golfer. Yeah, he was like was
Speaker 6: it eight or nine handicap? Okay, Oh, that's very good.
Speaker 7: He is like the top five percent of all the
Speaker 7: golfers in the world. So he was very good.
Speaker 1: He was very good, and he was dedicated. The room
Speaker 1: full of golf clubs that James had thought was garbage,
Speaker 1: Sarah spoke of it with respect. He called it the largest,
Speaker 1: most complete collection of golf clubs in all of Canada.
Speaker 1: You never want to hear someone refer to a person
Speaker 1: you love by a pet name prefixed by the word crazy.
Speaker 1: But the benefit is that when they tell you stuff
Speaker 1: about your dad, you know they're being honest. So when
Speaker 1: Sarah says what he says next, James knows he can
Speaker 1: believe him.
Speaker 7: I don't think I have ever met somebody as brilliant
Speaker 7: as your dad, the level of knowledge about every day.
Speaker 7: But on the other side, he was also very I
Speaker 7: wasn't too shy isolated like executive. Yeah, he quickly alone.
Speaker 7: We saw him very rarely on the clubhouse.
Speaker 4: I think it was because he was a bit of
Speaker 4: a loner.
Speaker 1: But he did love.
Speaker 4: People, and he loved the people here, and he did
Speaker 4: love all his friends here. But he really loved to
Speaker 4: come at six in the morning when he could just
Speaker 4: do his thing. That was very my father. That's what
Speaker 4: I really used to say, dude, it's very my father.
Speaker 1: And it's not that he didn't like people.
Speaker 5: He just liked to.
Speaker 4: Do things at his speed, his way and be done
Speaker 4: because he was sort of a loner.
Speaker 3: He was a loner.
Speaker 1: He's my father.
Speaker 6: You're the son of your father.
Speaker 1: And with that, it's time for James to become the
Speaker 1: son his father had asked him to be and do
Speaker 1: the job we came for.
Speaker 5: It's a great Now we're just we're just walking around,
Speaker 5: we're members, remembers sons.
Speaker 1: We head back outside and walk with purpose to the
Speaker 1: eighteenth hole. As fate would have it, the coast is clear.
Speaker 2: Actually, James, right now, turn your head right now here
Speaker 2: just just kind of just just kind of cool.
Speaker 5: Yeah, tire shoe, tire shoe, this opportunity right now.
Speaker 2: Let's walk with him.
Speaker 1: With Howard on his left and me on his right.
Speaker 1: We walked James out to the green, doing our best
Speaker 1: to protect him from view. Yeah, but we're walking with you.
Speaker 2: Say something, maybe I will.
Speaker 4: I will say something in my head.
Speaker 1: Do you want to say something in your head?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm just saying something in my head.
Speaker 5: Okay, Well, we're actually doing this. This is incredible because
Speaker 5: you're actually doing it right now.
Speaker 2: This is actually happening.
Speaker 5: He's actually putting his dad's ashes right on the eighteenth hole,
Speaker 5: just like he wanted.
Speaker 2: We didn't think this would be possible.
Speaker 5: Actually, James just tip just how he put He just
Speaker 5: dumped it right now the eighteenth hole.
Speaker 4: I got it right in the hole.
Speaker 1: That felt really good. I'm really glad right in the
Speaker 1: hole exactly. I feel great.
Speaker 4: I feel awesome.
Speaker 1: Howard and I are feeling pretty good too. This is
Speaker 1: the last time James would ever get to do something
Speaker 1: his dad had asked him to do, and we're proud
Speaker 1: to be a small part of it. We put our
Speaker 1: arms around our friend's neck and pat his back.
Speaker 3: Okay, well you got back home.
Speaker 6: That's incredible.
Speaker 1: Happy father's Day, Happy father's Day.
Speaker 4: Happy father's Day.
Speaker 1: Worked out perfectly. And James is right, it has kind
Speaker 1: of worked out perfectly. Sure, unlike the end of heist
Speaker 1: films like Reservoir Dogs, we weren't sipping drinks from a
Speaker 1: coconut on a beautiful beach. But James had become the
Speaker 1: person he wanted to be, and I'd become the person
Speaker 1: who helped him become the person he wanted to be.
Speaker 1: And Howard, well, he'd become the person who fills up
Speaker 1: a dog poop bag with free golf clubhouse dinner mint.
Speaker 1: So while in all it was a happy ending.
Speaker 2: Thank you guys for doing this, James had a fistful
Speaker 2: of his father's ashes in his hand, and he walked
Speaker 2: onto that green like a dawn bend onto one. He
Speaker 2: tipped his hat and just dumped it right into the
Speaker 2: hole and clean right in the hole. That was a
Speaker 2: hole in one. That's what I would say.
Speaker 1: Now that the Fernitures returned to its goodwill.
Speaker 4: Now that the last month's rant is skeidening.
Speaker 1: With the damage to the pole, take this moment to
Speaker 1: the save.
Speaker 4: If we imagine, if we.
Speaker 1: Too felt around for far too from things good Accident.
Speaker 1: Heavyweight is hosted and produced by me Jonathan Goldstein along
Speaker 1: with Chris Neary and Khalila Holt. The senior producer is
Speaker 1: Wendy Dore, editing by Alex Bloomberg and Jorge Just special
Speaker 1: thanks to Emily Condon, Stevie Lane, Derek Hurst, Stephen Hughes,
Speaker 1: and The Good Doctor Jackie Cohen. The show is mixed
Speaker 1: by Hailey Shaw, music by Christine Fellows. Additional music credits
Speaker 1: for this episode can be found on our website Gimbletmedia
Speaker 1: dot com slash Heavyweight. Our theme song is by the
Speaker 1: Weaker Thands to See If Epitaph Records, and our ad
Speaker 1: music is by Hailey Shaw. Follow us on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Heavyweight or email us at Heavyweight at gimbletmedia dot com.
Speaker 1: We'll have a new episode next week.
Speaker 2: Well wait, I have an idea. I'm on the eighteenth hole.
Speaker 2: I will literally collapse, like literally fake heart attack type shit.
Speaker 3: Probably wouldn't work. What if we got a drone like
Speaker 3: you know those little paradrones and put a bag in it,
Speaker 3: punched a hole bag and flew the drone over.
Speaker 1: You know how they say, with brainstorming, there's no bad ideas.
Speaker 1: These are bad ideas.