Rhododendron 'Golfer' 30 April 2022

When I was 15 my mother moved from Mexico City to the mining town of Nueva Rosita in the state of Coahuila. I had the opportunity to learn to play golf but I was simply not interested.

In the early 80s while doing work for Vancouver Magazine I was given an assignment to photograph the city golf courses. I soon learned that this was a plum job as I could walk on lovely days in these golf courses and I had no problem with sand traps. There was no stress.

At about the same time, with my contract work for Canadian Pacific Limited, I was dispatched to Hazelmere Golf Club in Langley and told to pick one spot (it was I believe the 11^th hole) and set up my light and big camera. I was to photograph the foursomes that were all headed by one CP man and had three clients.

Rhodendron 'Golfer' and Rosa 'Complicata' 24 June 2021

I remember that I got a notification from Montreal to keep my camera in the same place as they were having problems making prints as they were all different. I moved my camera to avoid shooting into the sun. My answer to the CP authorities was, “If CP can keep the sun in the same place I will stay put.”

While driving my Maserati Biturbo sometime around 1989 on Cambie I passed the Langara Golf Course on my right as I was headed home north. An errant golf ball crashed into my windshield and cracked it.

The indumentum - 17 July 2017

What all this means is that golf has not been ever in my blood even when in the 80s. I was shooting stills at the CBC and it was verboten to make clicking sounds. My competition was David Cooper who had what was called a blimp. It was made of plastic, it encased the camera, and it muffled those clicks. The best blimps were made in California for golf tournaments. If a golfer heard your click you were immediately ejected. My blimp was a double covering of a thick Argentine wool blanket. I had a hole for the lens and one for the viewfinder.

My CBC camera blimp

  

And so all the above leads me to tell the story of visiting my friend, the New Zealand-born plantsman Alleyne Cook (now no longer with us) and spotting a lovely rhododendron with unusual tomentum (the coating on the top side of the leaves, as the indumentum is on the other side). It was silver. I asked him what rhodo it was and he answered, “Golfer.” I asked a couple of times and eventually Cookie (as we called him) shouted, “This rhododendron is called Golfer and it was a creation of a Seattle friend of mine.”

As rhododendrons go this one does not grow to be large and I keep my specimen in check, just in case.

Today’s scan of Golfer does not show yet the silver tomentum but the second one does. This means I must wait a while for it.