David Barrett - Golfing with Dad: The Games Greatest Players Reflect on Their Fathers and the Game They Love

B rad Adamonis was just shy of thirty-five when he finally reached the PGA Tour in January 2008. His father, Dave, had been told a little more than two years earlier that he probably had just two months to live, but he made a mockery of that prognosis and fortunately was able to see his son accomplish his dream of reaching the games highest level.

You couldnt really blame doctors for their grim diagnosis. After all, in the fall of 2005, Dave was battling three forms of cancer at the same time. He lost seventy pounds but fought the disease, and dealt with the complications from surgery, with everything he had, and made a stunning recovery. Dave not only survived, he got back on his feet and was able to return to work and also to watch Brad play on the secondary Nationwide Tour in 2006 and 2007even walking the course as Brads caddie in one event.

While his father was waging that courageous struggle, Brad won a Nationwide Tour tournament in 2007 and made it through Q-School that winter to qualify for the PGA Tour, the culmination of years of perseverance. In 2008, Dave got to watch Brad in person at several PGA Tour events and also to watch on television as his son nearly won a tournament, losing in a play-off at the John Deere Classic.

Of all the horrible luck, Dave came down with yet another form of cancer in the fall of 2008 and passed away a year later at the age of sixty-two. He left behind quite a legacy. In his native Rhode Island, he started an organization that runs junior golf tournaments and founded Ocean State Golf magazineall as a sidelight to his regular job as a schoolteacher. Then he headed down to Miami and started a golf management program at Johnson & Wales University, where he coached the golf team to an NAIA national title.

On a family level, Brad remembers the support he received over the years, from his days learning the game and playing junior tournaments in Rhode Island to the years when his career stalled on the minitours. I was lucky I had parents who were supportive. Most would have just said, Hey, youre not going to make it.

Brad was introduced to the game at the age of three when he would ride in the golf cart with his father, who would let him hit some shots. I even remember one specifically that I hit pretty good, and Dad clapped, Brad says.

Brad seriously got into the game during the summer when he was eight, but not through any plan by his parents, Dave and Roberta. With both of them working, they signed him up for day camp, but Brad hated it. He wanted to play golf with older brother Dave Jr., who was playing every day with a friend.

I begged my parents to let me go play golf, Brad remembers. I just basically said, Im not going [to day camp]. You can drop me off there, but Im walking home.

His parents relented, and the golf course became his day camp. He played on weekends too with his father and grandfather. And he even played in a couple of junior tournaments that year. I think I shot 136 for eighteen holes, with a 69 and 67 on the nines, in my first tournament. I thought it was pretty cool.

Brads improvement was rapid over the next several years. Encouraged by a former neighbor who had moved to San Diego, Dave brought Brad out west to the Junior World Golf Championships at Torrey Pines. When he was twelve years old, Brad won his age group, a huge accomplishment because the tournament attracted a strong international field.

Brad now fully appreciates the sacrifices his father made so he could play junior golf. His father was a teacher, but he got a second job selling fertilizer to golf courses. Brad would often go along with his dad on his rounds and chip and putt on the practice greens of the various courses while Dave worked on sealing the deal. Dave also had stints at managing a nine-hole course and working as a course superintendent.

He went above and beyond in giving us opportunities to play, says Brad. He didnt play much golf when he was hustling to make some bucks so I could play golf. I was playing tournaments around the country, which wasnt very possible for a teacher with three kids [the family also includes a daughter, Kimberly].

On top of all this, Dave found time to work on his own venture, the US Challenge Cup Junior Golf Foundation, an organization he started in order to give better junior players in New England a chance to play tournaments. He began it in 1980, just when Dave and then Brad were coming along.

There werent many junior tournaments in the area back then, Brad says. He started with one tournament, and by the time I was playing, there were six. Now there are about thirty. It opened the door for kids from New England to be able to get into better colleges and get golf scholarships. And my father started it basically because he loved us and wanted us to have a chance to play more tournaments.