Dear Harvey,
I recently found myself at The All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club, watching a friend, Graham Neale, compete in the British Masters Grass Court Closed Championships. To sit at Wimbledon and see a man close to my age moving across those hallowed courts with purpose—that was both humbling and oddly reassuring. The crowd wasn’t roaring like they do for Alcaraz or Sinner, but the effort mattered no less. There’s something sacred in simply continuing to compete.
Not long ago, Graham had come to visit my golf club. Hosting him was meant to be a small favour for a friend, but it turned into something more: the start of a friendship rooted in shared passions—grass beneath our feet, the flight of a ball, the stubborn refusal to let age tell us what we can or cannot do.
Pondering Competition
I’ve been pondering competition across different generations. There’s Graham, still sharp and eager on a global stage. Then there’s someone like Wehman Hopke, decades younger, who once pursued golf professionally. Now in the business world, each year he tries to earn his spot in the U.S. Mid-Am. For him, competition has shifted from livelihood to passion, from proving himself to simply refusing to give up on the game.
Lessons from Pine Valley Golf Club
And on the other end of the spectrum, there’s my remarkable Uncle Charlie McDowell, who just shared a draft of his memoirs, titled The First 80 Years. I recently had the privilege of returning to Pine Valley Golf Club for three days of golf with two dear friends, Tommy Cooley and Ed Healey, plus Charlie. Tommy, the scratch player and I teamed up against Ed and Charlie on two of our rounds. Both days, we went into the 16th all square, and both days, the 80-year-old kicked it into an extra gear and finished three of the most challenging holes in golf at nearly even par, winning the matches for his team, and leaving Ed, Tommy, and our caddies with their tongues hanging out in amazement! One of the longtime Pine Valley caddies summed it up well, quietly whispering to me:
I’ve seen this movie before, your Uncle Charlie can really play, and nobody gets it out of these bunkers and close to the hole like he does!
Charlie’s golf resume is very special, but it pales in comparison to his philonthropic endeavors in Wilmington, DE. That’s why Charlie is one of my featured ‘cheeroes’ in my book project, The Little Book of Relevance.
cheero: A word I made up that means a hero, who cheers you on!
And then there’s me
My contests are quieter, measured in a quest for a single-digit golf handicap and the ability to hang in at a high level of doubles on the tennis court. At sixty-six, competition means early morning fitness sessions, lots of foam rolling and stretching, plus the discipline to keep showing up. Some days, the body reminds me who’s boss. On other days, it surprises me, moving as if it still remembers.
Your advice to “Take Dead Aim” now reads differently. As a younger man, I heard it as a command to be bold. Today, it feels like a call to clarity—cut through the clutter, stay steady, and keep competing against the only opponent who never leaves: me.
Til next time,
gPage
P.S. The introduction to the series is here, where I discuss four ‘fractals’. This letter is Fractal II – The Contest of Years. Next, is Fractal III – The Gift of Restless Striving. I will reflect on the paradox of ‘striving’—the gift of never being fully satisfied, whether in a golf swing or in life’s larger pursuits. I’ll introduce two guiding phrases that capture the spirit of this restlessness: to live consciously optimistic and blissfully dissatisfied, grateful for today yet always reaching for what could be.
“Millions of people were charmed by the homespun golf advice dispensed in Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book, a sports classic that became the best-selling sports book of all time. Yet, beyond the Texas golf courses where Penick happily toiled for the better part of eight decades, few people knew the self-made golf pro who coaxed the best out of countless greats — Tom Kite, Ben Crenshaw, Betsy Rawls, Mickey Wright — all champions who considered Penick their coach and lifelong friend.” – Kevin Robbins, author of Harvey Penick: The Life and Wisdom of the Man Who Wrote the Book on Golf.
