John Mineck

He should have lived forever. Brad Faxon on John Mineck

A beautiful column by Jim McCabe in the Boston Globe on John Mineck, who died a week ago, working on the course he founded, Boston Golf Club. John, among the many other things he did, was a Golf Digest course-rating panelist.

Some people touch your lives. Then there are those rare ones who shape them and mold them into something better than you ever could have imagined. That was John, a sort of Pied Piper to an eclectic group of us who shared a love of golf. In his whimsical way, John Mineck created a golf world for us in which the rules were simple: Treat the game with great care, ignore the pomp, play with people of all levels and various backgrounds, don't even keep score if you don't want to, give when you can give, and love your friends and family.

McCabe quotes Brad Faxon, who knew Mineck well and was there a few years back to open the course that yesterday was the site of his memorial service.

"He should have lived forever," said Faxon, whose sentiment has been echoed by so many of us in recent days. Not because we thought John Mineck was indestructible, but because we selfishly realize how indispensable he was to us.

—Bob Carney