Minnesota Golfer - Travel 2022 - 58

BACKSPIN
Ode to " The Greatest "
Golf instructor Michael Turnbull brightened our lives
and then left too soon-but the memories won't.
S
omewhere in the hoard that comes with 34 years of
marriage is a birthday card to my wife. It promises a golf
lesson with Michael Turnbull, a stranger who made me
his lifelong friend the moment he shook my hand and planted
an infectious laugh that will live in my head the rest of my life.
" But I don't like golf, " my wife said when she opened that card
long ago.
Doesn't matter, I said.
" You've got to meet Michael, " I said. " He's the greatest! "
I can hear Michael's laugh. See the
sly smile. Feel my anticipation as another
fun story would explode from
his lips, meander for a bit and end
with Michael telling me with a twinkle
in his eye how I had to meet someone
because he or she ... " is the greatest. "
Michael Turnbull, 67, died Oct. 6.
In vintage Turnbull fashion, he not
only wrote his obituary he made us
laugh by nailing the lead as only he
could: " Michael is dead ... D-E-AD,
dead. He certainly hasn't passed.
In fact, he hasn't passed since he hit
Mike Jakacki for a 40-yard touchdown
to beat Chaska in 1971. "
A heart attack took Michael one
day after he gave the final lesson of
his 46-year teaching career and one
day before the news hit me that a
promise I made my wife 22 years ago
can't be kept.
Some of us think there will always
be another tomorrow. Not Michael.
Michael enjoyed today in a way that
seized the urgency of our mortality
while still living an unhurried life. In other words, Michael
epitomized the natural golf swing he insisted was in every one
of us if only we'd stop filling our heads with to-do lists and start
feeling the clubhead speaking to us.
Michael's feel for the club, for life, for learning, for reading
anything ever written about the Civil War and Watergate,
for fun and friendship was as keen at the end as it was the
day he told a childhood buddy his pinball machine was off58
MINNESOTAGOLFER
Travel 2022
Michael Turnbull
* BY MARK CRAIG *
balance. They argued until the buddy fetched his level to prove
Turnbull wrong.
The pinball machine was off-balance. By 1/16th of an inch.
Five decades of battling diabetes prepared Michael for what
he recently said would be " the blessing " of dying. But illness
never made him bitter. Or stopped him from listing " friendliness "
as one of his favorite likes, " people who can't/won't
laugh at themselves " as one of his greatest dislikes and marrying
Sara, " a Whimsical Hippie to Laugh With, " as the best decision
of his life.
Minnesota's golfing gods must have
felt sorry for me in the spring of 2000.
They spotted me, an Ohio transplant
and brand-new Star Tribune golf
writer, unlimited strokes of wisdom
by making Michael the first interview
for my first story. I wrote the
story and thought I was moving on
until Michael kept helping me, kept
introducing me to people, places and
things, kept laughing with me 19
holes at a time.
One of my last local golf stories for
the Strib featured Michael. He had
been teaching golf at Brookview since
2005 when they asked him to take a
lead in their lawn bowling venture.
As usual, Turnbull wrote my lead
with a story about being recognized
in public by a Brookview patron
who had forgotten his name and
primary job.
" The guy starts yelling, 'Hey, Lawn
Bowling Guy! " says Turnbull, laughing,
of course.
I laughed at Michael laughing at Michael.
As I left, he joked that my wife could transfer her birthday
card promise to lawn bowling. I smiled and said I'd bring her
next time, but never did.
I should have because Michael really was ... " the greatest. "
Mark Craig is the NFL/Vikings columnist and a golf writer for the
Star Tribune.
mngolf.org
PHOTO: MATT SEEFELDT
http://www.mngolf.org
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