Source: The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Va.)
Virginia Beach, Va. - Growing up on a farm in East Texas, Averill Brigman "didn't have a clue" about golf.
Brigman would be well into his 30s before he would tee it up and let one rip down the fairway.
After that, you couldn't get Brig, as everyone called him, off the course. For nearly 15 years he was superintendent of Red Wing Lake Golf Course.
Brigman, who died Wednesday at the age of 80, would arrive with the sun barely up and the dew on the grass and be there tending to the next day's pin placements in the darkness. On his days off and after he retired, he often played 18 or 36 holes.
"He loved everything about golf," said his daughter, Cymathia Brigman. Even cleaning out sandtraps and spraying the course for mosquitoes.
In the tiny town of Campbell, Brig didn't have much time for anything but working the family farm and going to school. He and a classmate , Audie Murphy, later went into the service.
Brig didn't win as many medals as Murphy, America's most decorated combat soldier in World War II. But he won his share, including the Bronze Star, Purple Heart with three Oak Leaf clusters and Combat Infantry Badge.
Cymathia Brigman takes credit for her dad's introduction to golf.
"According to the family story, he took up golf immediately after I came home from the hospital as a baby."
Brigman, a strapping 6 feet, was an excellent golfer. His towering drives earned him the nickname "Long Knocker." One year, he made three holes in one at Red Wing.
Brigman kept Red Wing shipshape with a management style combining his easy-going personality and love of military precision.
"He was great to work for," said Jerome Smith, assistant greens superintendent at Red Wing. "The course had to look perfect, but he let you do your job, and he always had a joke or something fun to say."
Brigman, said Smith, was known for many acts of kindness to his staff, loaning them money or driving them to work. He also took great pleasure in introducing neighborhood youngsters to the game he loved so much.
In his latter years, he still played despite having vision in only one eye and suffering the effects of a stroke.
Said Smith: "He still could hit it pretty good."