We make jokes around here about how much vacation time JP Finlay takes, but if you know JP you know he’s one of the hardest workers in the biz…that said, as he did on Thursday when he got back from a last-minute trip to the Masters, ‘when you get the invite to go to Augusta, you go, period point blank.”
And while we wish he didn’t bring back an egg salad sandwich and a smell of an overhead bin that ruined everyone’s lunch, we do understand why Augusta means so much to JP – and now, you do too.
“Augusta matters so much to anyone that's a sports fan, especially if you're a golf fan, because it's just a magical place – but it was now seven years ago, Sunday at Augusta 2017, my father passed and that morning,” JP revealed. “I was at the hospital in Naples and we were all in the room. I remember being in the elevator to get outside and get some space, and I remember this guy got on wearing a purple blazer, and he was an older fella but he had this presence and charisma about him that almost felt like Biblical. He was like, ‘who you got winning today?’ and I looked at him and I wanted to be polite and make small talk, and I just started bawling and I was like, ‘dude, my dad just died.’ And this guy I had never met, in this elevator that I had never been in, going to sit on a bench that I'd never sat on…he just gave me a hug and was like, ‘man, I'm so sorry.’ And it was incredibly powerful, probably more so just because I was an emotional wreck, and I went outside and I cried and I cursed and frankly, I think I smoked a couple of heaters, and you move forward.”
As the Finlay family came to terms with the passing of their patriarch, it was the tradition unlike any other that helped JP cope with the day’s magnitude.
“There's some perfunctory measures required when someone passes away, which is really a whole ball of fun, but eventually we got back to the house where my dad was living, and I was with my sister and my brother and my dad's wife, and it was Masters Sunday. And the one thing my dad would have insisted on doing was watching the Masters. It was a beautiful day, April in Florida, and we put a TV outside on their lanai so we could just chill outside and watch – and we got rip roaring drunk, not gonna lie about that. But I remember as it went on and on, rooting for Sergio to win, because he was European and my father was European and he always liked Sergio. And so Augusta…I imagine a lot of people have their own reason why Augusta matters so much to them, but I don't even think I told CK that when I called him, I just asked off Wednesday because going to Augusta is really, really important to me.”
James Patrick Finlay Jr. passed April 9, 2017, seven years ago Tuesday, and seven years and a day later, JP said his own prayer at Amen Corner.
“The further you get away from a really important passing in your life, everybody's got different things, right?” JP said. “I talked to my sister Tuesday night, and it's always as heavy, you know what I mean? That loss stays with me every day, damn near moment after moment; it starts to maybe hurt less but it matters a tremendous amount. My youngest daughter never met my father. There's a hole there, but the pain and the anguish and all that starts to wear off, and for me, a huge part of that is Augusta. I've now been every year since he passed, and it's incredibly special – and to the people that are so kind and helped me make that happen, I owe them a tremendous amount.”
And, a cool story.
“When you up by the clubhouse, between 9 and18 and the putting green and 1 and 10, I believe that is the center of the universe. And we were standing there and the Spanish fellas had all just played I believe nine holes together, and Jon Rahm is walking up the hill,” JP said. “Rahm’s a massive star and he's a big dude, and you see this rush of humanity to Rahm and his caddy as they're walking up and they're escorted by security. But I noticed another caddy, because the caddies wear the all-white bibs with the green lettering, and then I realize it's Sergio's caddy. I like to zig when the world zags, so the world is going to Rahm, but I notice that's Sergio walking away. Sergio is a somewhat polarizing figure in golf, and he probably not among the most popular loved golfers in America, but to me, he matters a tremendous amount because of everything that transpired seven years ago. So I saw Sergio walking away, nobody was bugging him, nobody was saying anything, and I, probably 10-15 feet away, just said, ‘hey, Sergio, good luck this week.’ And he looked me in the eye and said, ‘thanks, man.’ And that was everything I needed in that moment.”