Cameron Champ and his father Jeff in an emotion-filled embrace following the Champs win at the Safeway Open at Silverado
September 30, 2019
NAPA, Calif. – Mack “Pops” Champ never predicted it would come to this. Not when his oldest brother, Clyde, found a rod and bent it into an L shape before taping up the grip for their first golf club. Not when they hit balls in the open fields by the railroad tracks near their home outside Houston, the best they could do because they weren’t allowed on the course except as caddies.
But it happened, his grandson Cameron winning the Safeway Open at Silverado on Sunday as the man who got him started, Mack, 78, watched on TV. He’s been in hospice care back in Sacramento, hasn’t eaten more than popsicles for three weeks, but he saw every minute. It was real, and there wasn’t a dry eye. Just an hour or so south of their hometown, Cameron won and sobbed onto the shoulder of his caddie, Kurt Kowaluk, as they embraced.
“I think it was just kind of meant to be,” Cameron said afterward.
t was Champ’s second PGA TOUR win, and the second time in as many seasons he’s won in his second start. He moves to No. 2 in the FedExCup, and earns a spot in the Sentry Tournament of Champions and, for the first time, the Masters Tournament, among other select events.
Mack couldn’t have predicted any of it, but he had an inkling. After all, it was Mack who bought the boy his first set of plastic golf clubs. And it was Mack, an Air Force man who got close to scratch while playing overseas, who knew what talent looked like.
“First time I knew he had pretty good coordination,” Mack told the PGA TOUR earlier this year, “I don’t think he was 2 years old. I told him, I want you to take this long tee, you stay over here, and I’m going to go over and I want to see if you can hit it over the top of the house.”
It was not a big house, single story. The Champs never had a lot. But Cameron hit it over that house; Mack, on the other side, watched the ball clear the roof and come down near his feet.
“It took him about four or five hits,” he said, smiling, “but he said, ‘Grandpa! I hit it over the top of the house!’ I said, ‘I know! I’m over here, Cameron!’ (Laughs) And from that day on, when he came in, I’d have little putting dishes in the hallway. We just made games. Chipping over bushes. Chipping into coffee cans. You know. I never thought it would lead to this, back then, but I saw something in how he would just swing the club.”
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