The golf community lost a much-beloved family member recently.
Anyone who played NCAA Division I college golf in the past half-century would have known North Carolina State coach Richard Sykes for his quick wit and ability to make everyone laugh. For 46 years, until his retirement in 2017, Sykes was without question one of the most loved figures in the college game.
I was lucky to spend four of those 46 years playing for Sykes, who died Sept. 25 at age 78, and the N.C. State Wolfpack.
Before the internet, recruitment budgets or international placement agencies, foreign players like myself would use the Ping American College Golf Guide to find out about college golf in America. Ping’s guide was basically a Yellow Pages of U.S. colleges that offer scholarships.
For some reason, my father chose to make his first call to Raleigh, North Carolina – initially because there was a direct U.K. flight, 12 months of golf, and he liked the idea of visiting nearby Pinehurst.
After 20 minutes on the phone to Richard, my father came off the call and looked at me. “Pack your bags,” he said. “You are going to N.C. State to play for that guy.” To this day, I have never seen my old man buy anything so quickly. Either he just wanted rid of me, or he was like everyone else and would have bought anything that Richard Sykes was selling.
It was one of the best moves of my life, and I will be forever grateful that Coach picked up the phone to my father.
His tenure spanned generations of Wolfpack golfers, and his role as coach adapted over time. In the 1970s as a very young man, he was more like a peer, a (slightly) wiser older-brother figure. He was very much a father figure to my generation and likely a slightly cranky grandfather to his later teams.
Richard and his wife, Pam, known to us all as “Shug” (“Sugar,” without the second syllable) welcomed me to Raleigh in August 1994. With my family being back in St. Andrews, Scotland, the Sykeses adopted me into their family as they did all Wolfpack golfers. Everyone was made to feel like part of the Sykes family when we joined the Wolfpack golf program.
Before South African Tim Clark joined the team in the fall of 1995, I was the token foreigner at tournaments. College golf in the U.S. is very much a family affair, with parents and other relatives following their loved ones in tournaments. I was the only player without family there, and Shug always made a point to follow me on the course. I will always remember her kindness and warmth.
Earlier this year, I spent time with Will Zalatoris, a Wake Forest alumnus whom I was asked by a mutual friend to help navigate the Old Course in preparation for the 150th Open Championship. As soon as Will discovered that I played at N.C. State, we spent the rest of the week sharing our favorite Coach Sykes stories. Many of them had been perhaps embellished over the years, but as Coach would tell us, “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”
I recall being immensely proud when Will told me, “Coach Sykes was one of my favorites. We (Wake Forest) always loved to get paired with the Pack and listen to Coach Sykes. Our coach (Jerry Haas) always had some great stories about him, too; Sykes was coaching when he played.”
One of my favorite stories about Coach Sykes that I like to tell was at the 1998 NCAA East Regional tournament on Daufuskie Island, South Carolina. Tim Clark had won the East Regional in 1996 and ’97 and was one of the favorites to win the regional at Melrose Golf Club. Coach had been asked by a local television station for an interview about Timmy and the team’s chances to progress to the NCAA Tournament in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The reporter asked whether the course suited our team, and in particular, Clark. With a wry smile, Coach responded, “I think the course will suit Tim just fine. It has 18 greens and 18 tees. However, I am not so sure it will suit his four teammates.”
Richard Sykes had a rare sense of humor, most of the time self-deprecating.
As a child, he was involved in a bow-and-arrow accident that cost him his right eye. Never to let an ailment restrict him, he would use his glass eye as a prop in one of his many gags. We had a team tradition, as I am sure most teams did, that whoever shot the lowest score of the day got to choose the restaurant in the evening.
My freshman year, I remember Hank Kim had returned the lowest round of the day and had chosen Outback Steakhouse. When our salad course had been delivered, Coach decided to play a prank on the waitress. He removed his steely blue eye and placed it face-up in his salad bowl. He called the waitress back to inform her his house salad appeared to be staring at him.
As well as pranking waitresses, he always enjoyed it when his team pranked him. And I, like his players from his other teams, took great pleasure in getting one over on Coach.
We were playing a tournament at Keswick in Virginia, a hilly course. I was having one of my few good rounds and was about 6- or 7-under. Richard, in his usual fashion, was trying to stay away and not jinx me. I knew he couldn’t help himself and was watching from a distance through his binoculars.
On the 17th green, I had missed a birdie putt of around 8 feet and was left with a tap-in. I could tell he was still watching but knew he could see me only from the waist up. I said to my playing competitor James Driscoll, “Bear with me. I am going to mess with Coach.” I duly holed my putt but gestured as if I had missed it. I then pretended to miss it again, and again, playing what’s known as hole hockey. I couldn’t look up so as to keep the ruse going, but Driscoll told me that Coach all but threw his hat.
I forget what I made on the 18th – par, I think – and signed for a 66. I took great pleasure in handing my card to Coach, who wouldn’t look me in the eye. “Two signatures,” as he would say when returning our cards to him, still without making eye contact as he scanned the card for mistakes. “Is this correct?” he asked. “Yup,” I said with a smile. “Gosh, darnit, Bunch. You got me good there,” or words to that effect.
Some of my fondest golfing memories are in the back of the N.C. State golf team bus headed to or from a tournament. I am pretty sure Coach would choose tournaments on the following criteria: 1) a town that had a Cracker Barrel restaurant; 2) a course that didn’t have much out-of-bounds; and 3) the tournament had at least three teams he knew we could beat. Coach hated to finish last.
I discovered why he hated out-of-bounds at my first college tournament. We played a course in Lakeland, Florida, and it had an out-of-bounds on the 17th hole, a drivable par 4.
Coach and I had our first experience of a trans-Atlantic miscommunication. I hit what I thought was a decent drive down the left-hand side of the hole, close to the putting surface. Coach was following his Scottish freshman in his debut round of college golf. He was close to the green and gestured back to me. He gave me what I know now to be the “safe” signal in baseball. In Scotland, that signal means it is definitely not safe. I proceeded to hit another ball without calling it provisional.
Our miscommunication cost the team two shots. Ever since that day, I always utter the words “provisional ball.”
My world and the Wolfpack family will not be the same without Coach Richard Sykes. I was heartbroken when I heard the news.
I know it is no consolation, but Tim Clark sent me a wonderful photograph taken by Richard’s daughter Paige of Shug and Richard at the N.C. State vs. Connecticut football game the night before he passed.
I know if he had been offered a chance to go on his own terms, it would have been in his sleep, after an evening with his beloved Shug at a Wolfpack game. And for the Pack to win to go 4-0, I can hear him say, “How sweet it is.”
For that, I am very grateful.
Top: Richard Sykes and his wife, Pam, attend an N.C. State football game Sept. 24, the night before he died.
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