Lightning does strike in the same place twice. The location was the Dunes course at La Quinta resort in La Quinta, California. This was the same course that I met Dr. Tucker in Story 2. This time the roles were reversed, and I was on my own in the starter’s box. The person I was supposed to be playing with did not turn up. Not wanting to play on my own in case I got a hole in one and had no one to verify it, I started to wander back to my house which was close by.
It was that moment I had a tap on my shoulder and the person behind me asked if his group could join me. I turned around only to instantly recognize the person behind me, it was Novac Djokovic, his manager, and Rafa Nadal. They were in La Quinta for the major tournament at Indian Wells. Because of their seeding they had a day off and decided to play golf. They told me they had never played at The Dunes course at La Quinta before, so they were really pleased to have someone show them around.
They were all reasonable golfers, mid-teens handicap, but occasionally with their arm strength hit some very errant shots. Novac and I hit the same house with our drives which caused everyone a lot of amusement.
When our golf round was over Novac asked if there was anything they could do for me, like tickets to their matches, I told him we already had box seats at the tournament that we had had for many years but thanked him anyway. In a spilt second, I thought my daughter, Andrea, who was an excellent college tennis player would fly out to see them play. I told Novak that I had a daughter in New York who would be delighted to fly out and watch them play. This immediately upped the ante, with Rafa offering to have Andrea sit in the players’ box and Novak offering to match it and meet us before his match at the players’ entrance.
Now was the time to call Andrea and tell her who I had just met on the golf course.
Andrea was used to me calling about people I had met on the golf course, but this was different, I was not going to tell her who the people I played with were. I started the call by telling I had met two really nice young men on the golf course who were playing in the Indian Wells Tournament and would she like to fly out and meet them. Novak’s manager gave me his number and he would let us know the dates and times for our rendezvous with Novak and Rafa. This all seemed a little unreal until I got a call from their manager with the details.
Andrea arrived from New York and the following day we set off for the tournament. Standing by the players’ entrance, Andrea wanted to know who these tennis players were. It was only a few minutes before a white Cadillac pulled up and out popped Rafa Nadal. To say Andrea was surprised was an understatement Rafa was always one of her favorites and here he was telling her how much he enjoyed playing golf with her dad. He then proceeded to not only kiss her on both cheeks but also my wife. Both almost had the vapors but recovered enough to see another white Cadillac pull up and Novak head our way. Rafa was kind of shy but Novak was the opposite, he was effusive about playing golf with me, much more than I deserved. He chatted for a bit, gave Andrea a ticket for his box, and then invited us to meet him after his match where he was doing a USTA commercial.
After the match we headed down to the USTA venue for the commercial and right on cue, Novak arrived. He was very gracious about spending some more time with us until he left to film the commercial. Golf had done it again, I had met two extraordinary young men, either one could become the GOAT. Rafa, with his extraordinary success as the Roland Garros tournament winner 14 times, or Novak, with his 24 majors. Whoever finally prevails, because of golf, I got to meet two very accomplished young men on the golf course.
