You can find them at the end of a clear summer Sunday in central Kentucky, a last flood of orange light gleaming gently across the rolling farmland of Connemara Golf Course. Often it is well past suppertime and the only remaining sounds come from two voices — a casual observer would swear they are father and son — and the peaceful game they are playing.
The man is Joshua Dakota, a 34-year-old who has been an occasional golfer since his early teens before becoming obsessed the last few years. The young boy beside him recently turned 9 years old and sports a New York Yankees ball cap, just like Dakota. He runs merrily to his ball between swings, the excitement of solid contact enough to draw a smile and a look back to Dakota for reassurance.
What you can’t see or hear is why they arrived at this cathartic sanctuary.
Dakota, the boy’s uncle, has lived a good portion of his life in the Bluegrass State. He attended Asbury University, just south of Lexington, and then split time between Kentucky and Pittsburgh over the next few years before relocating to New Jersey in the summer of 2015.
His intentions were to stay there, but that changed on March 6, 2018. The day before, his 27-year-old sister, Jennifer Montgomery, had filed for divorce. Less than 24 hours later, she was shot and killed, allegedly by her husband, outside their Danville, Ky., home. Court proceedings are currently underway.
In a matter of moments, a 7-year-old boy and a 1-year-old girl lost a mother and father. Dakota immediately knew he had to move back to become a mentor in their lives, so he uprooted his life in New Jersey and relocated back to Kentucky.
In the days and weeks that followed, Dakota would be largely responsible for managing the aspects of death nobody likes to mention, like planning the memorial service or submitting paperwork for the burial. He needed an outlet to momentarily escape the overwhelming grief.
“I just remember that it was March and it was still cold, but I brought my clubs,” Dakota recalls. “I thought that was a way to unwind. Throughout the first three weeks there was so much stuff going on. You hear about tragedies like this happening in headlines, but if you haven’t lived through it, you don’t know what the day-to-day is like. It’s a full-time job. … Golf quickly became an essential outlet from that.”
In a poetic and profound way, the course became a venue for healing. It started with Dakota playing on his own, but soon after, it evolved into his nephew putting down video games in favor of holding a golf club.
Putting aside the tragic circumstances for the move, Dakota found solace in the game he reveres so much. He jokes that the golf part of moving from New Jersey to Kentucky is a considerable upgrade because there is more public golf available, fewer people clogging up courses and a longer season to play. All of this may seem trivial at first, but it helped the 14-handicap’s love of golf take on a different meaning.
“It was a period of time where I could shut everything off,” Dakota said. “I could be outside in nature. Walking a course became very therapeutic. And it was something I could do alone or with my nephew.”
Golf, more than any other game, is rooted in empathy. To be a golfer is to understand and appreciate the struggle of someone who can’t get the ball airborne. At the same time, to be a person is to feel the excruciating pain of loss and the desire for reclaiming normalcy. It’s a central thread in golf’s relationship to life, one so often representing the other.
In a poetic and profound way, the course became a venue for healing. It started with Dakota playing on his own, but soon after, it evolved into his nephew putting down video games in favor of holding a golf club.
About three weeks after arriving back in Kentucky, Dakota bought his nephew a pitching wedge so he could whack it around in the backyard. Right away, he became interested in the game. That led to a family friend giving the boy a set of youth clubs.
“I told him, ‘Hey, maybe we will go out and play one day,’” Dakota said. “But you know young kids these days, their heads are buried in iPads and tablets. His attention span is not a long time whatsoever and he gets bored so easily, so I was a little hesitant on taking him out. There were so many variables there.”
However, once he got a set of clubs, he persistently asked Dakota when they were finally going to play. When they did get on the course for the first time, they discovered an instant alchemy.
“He absolutely loved it,” Dakota said. “He can hit the ball as many times as he wants. Especially if it is a little busier, as we are waiting, he can hit because he won’t reach the group ahead of us. And then when we get up to the green, we have putting competitions. There are so many things he can do on one hole.
“There are very limited things he gets engaged in, so this was something that when it clicked, I knew it was perfect. It’s such a cool experience that I wasn’t expecting.”
One of the key avenues to making this possible was an emerging junior golf program called Youth on Course. Dakota came across it online as he was looking to sign up for his own handicap, and it was soon evident that having his nephew be a part of the program would be hugely beneficial. They went through etiquette training together – like its partner The First Tee, Youth on Course puts a premium on teaching life skills beyond the course as well – and became members who can take advantage of low rates at certain facilities. More than 1,200 participating courses offer golf at $5 or less.
“Even this past weekend, he came to me and said, ‘When are we going to play golf?’ ” Dakota said. “He’s hooked. We are able to get out there every other week in the summer and he can’t wait to play. … He’s such a happy and resilient kid. He’s still going through a lot and he’s aware of what happened, but he can still be a kid and have fun. He definitely maxes out on the fun when he’s on the golf course.”
In the wake of tragedy, finding a healthy, recurring activity can be life-altering. Michael Lowe, the vice president of programs for Youth on Course, says that the organization puts a priority on children like Dakota’s nephew. The program started with the Northern California Golf Association in 2006, but later became reimagined as a nationwide movement that has subsidized more than 900,000 rounds of golf. It also includes internship opportunities, a caddie program and awards more than $250,000 in scholarships annually.
“Unfortunately, there are thousands and thousands of kids who deal with issues at home, particularly when it comes to something like gun violence,” Lowe said. “In youth education and development, the importance of a safe place is so vital.
“So for any kid, no matter what zip code they grow up in, to have access to golf and the healing that can come with it, that is a big part of what we are.”
In the year and a half since they started playing together, Dakota and his nephew have felt the healing Lowe references. It can’t change the eternal wound of tragedy, but it can be a difference-maker in stitching the scar.
If golf was nothing else, that would be enough.
You can visit youthoncourse.org to learn more about the program.