By Al Barkow
As a professional journalist I am always looking for stories to tell of events that reveal something about how the world works, how people deal with the turns life takes, how they made it turn and the outcomes. It is rare that the journalist is a personal part of the events; indeed, there’s a general rule that the reporter must not be part of the story, and so be totally objective.
But that is not the case here, for the story to be told involves my son, Adam Barkow, and how golf, which has been an integral part of our lives, has played so large a role in his tale of rebirth, recovery and emancipation. It’s a good story that is getting better, and I think best told by his dad.
Adam was born on May 13, 1988, in New York City. Two years later, at the Pelham CC, in Westchester County, I took a picture of him playing out of a bunker. He was in diapers, held the club cross-handed, and splashed some sand and moved the ball. (To jump ahead for a moment, as Adam developed as a golfer he became an especially good bunker player. Could that very early experience in a bunker have infused in him some intrinsic know-how?)
He was a born athlete. He smoothly chased down fly balls, played a solid shortstop, pitched with speed; baseball, early on, was as much his game as golf. He had a good eye for the basket, played soccer, and did it all with a natural grace. It came with the territory, so to say. His mother had excellent athletic talent - as a youth she trained for Olympic swimming, and she had a good golf swing. I played some pretty good baseball, and better golf.
So, on seeing Adam hit a golf ball now and people remark that I taught him well, I respond by saying it was pretty easy; I was working with good stuff. One example, at a driving range when he was a pre-teen he could hit a driver off the deck – that is, off those flat, concrete hard driving range mats - and get the ball well up in the air. I was stunned when I first saw that, and knew the kid had a gift.
Otherwise, he was hyper-active, impatient, and of his own mind. A grammar school teacher suggested Ritalin to slow him down. His nature was exacerbated when the marriage by which he came to be broke down. No details are necessary on that score, except to say that Adam was early on stuck with bad home vibes – frequent arguments, separations, changes of address. He would make friends, get accustomed to a neighborhood, then be moved to another home and social setting.
The one steady note in his life was his golf. It served as a buffer, something he could count on against the domestic turmoil. However, as we know, golf seriously is not the best cushion for anxiety. And when he played poorly, even one shot, his ballast trembled; the one thing he depended on for some stability in his life went bad, even if just for a moment, and he would fume in anger, tell himself he was a flop with no chance of making good.
For all that, his golf steadily improved. When he was 13 he broke 80 for the first time on a strong course in New Jersey, where he grew up, and with high school coming up I decided on moving to California, where he could play golf year ‘round, take part in good junior golf competition, and avoid another significant change in his social life. His mother had developed health issues and moved to Washington state to live on her sister’s farm. Adam moved in with me.
We drove west and settled in Albany, where friends there reported that the town had a quality high school. He led the school’s golf team, and became a top junior player in the East Bay.
At the same time, once out of high school he participated in the culture of his group; he got into graffiti, chasing girls, and drinking. The latter, of course, was the most destructive. It, too, came with some territory. Alcoholism has a genetic quotient, and his mother was alcoholic, as was her father, who was crippled after a DUI-induced car crash.
Adam gained some notice with his junior golf in the Bay Area. He won the Venturi Flight title in the S.F. City Amateur, went birdie-eagle to qualify for the initial First-Tee Pro-Junior tournament, played at Pebble Beach Golf Links, was in a playoff for the San Leandro City Junior, and made perhaps the only eagle two ever on the very hard par-four first hole at Tilden Park; holed an 8-iron. All of which caught the attention of golf coach Zack Papachristos at Chabot College. He played there for two years. In all, his golf was on an upward swing despite his temperament.
A friend, John Erickson, who was an All-American at Fresno State, got Adam an audition with the school’s golf coach, Mike Watney. He topped his drive on the first hole, but picked things up quickly enough and was accepted. He played at Fresno State for two years. Having used up his eligibility for college golf and missing the more cosmopolitan Bay Area and his friends there, he dropped out of school one semester from taking a degree.
Back in the Bay Area, his drinking increased as he got older and deeper into the social scene with friends. He took work as a waiter, and, ironically, eventually as a bartender; the food and drink business became his primary source of income.
With all that, he came to a crossroads. He had much promise as a pro tournament golfer, which was all he was interested in. He did not want to be a teaching professional. Alas, there wasn’t the money at home that he needed to play on a tournament circuit, and he came to think he didn’t have a chance at the one thing that really attracted him. With that he made a rash decision – he quit the game.
He worked, hung out, and began drinking heavily. I knew he drank, but not as much as I later discovered; he hid it from me. Then one day he came to me with tears in his eyes and said, “Pop, I’m an alcoholic.” Admitting is the first step in fighting the disease. Two hours later I got him into the office of a doctor at Kaiser Permanente who specialized in counseling alcoholics. It was a start.
He was very close with my daughter from my first marriage, Deborah, who was 18 years older. They were not step sister/brother, they were brother and sister. Adam’s big sister was an especially warm, wise and strong advisor. She had artistic talent, worked for over a decade as a film editor, then took a degree that qualified her as a professional therapist. She was well-suited for that profession. However, she contracted leukemia, and in 2020 died at the age of 50. It was an immeasurable tragedy, but she left a mark on Adam’s life aside from an everlasting sorrow. She knew well his emotional tendencies, and his drinking, and gave him a book by Alan Watts, The Way of Zen. It jump-started his turn-around not only to sobriety, but a calmer, more measured and thoughtful approach to living.
After nine years of lassitude, during which time he played two or three rounds of golf, he made a decision; he would quit drinking. He had tried AA, briefly, but didn’t take to the somewhat dogmatic tone of the meetings. He would do it on his own; no therapist, no other outside advisors, his determination to get off the destructive wagon he was riding. The date, July 20th, 2023.
Soon after he began the deliverance, he met Sam Harris, who became another key figure in the transformation. Sam was an excellent golfer, an introspective fellow who taught history at Menlo Park High School. They bonded, and played more than a little golf together. Sam, seeing what was there, encouraged Adam to get back playing golf again. Serious golf. Which he did.
Through my friend, Tom Isaak, founder of CourseCo, which operates some 40 golf courses in the west, Adam was gifted with complimentary playing and practice privileges at the Metropolitan Golf Links, in Oakland, an interesting layout with a wide, all-grass practice range. Came the evolution. Now off drink, his body was being restored. Adam hit thousands of balls at the range, played many rounds, and was back into the thing that set him apart, made him special. Not only would he get his game back in order, he would approach it with greater patience, less chaotic emotion. He began reading Bob Rotella, a pioneer sports psychologist who was especially prominent in golf. I have had long interest in the mental side of golf, and from my library gave him Zen in the Art of Archery, which speaks to tension-free release of the bow, but, too, of a golf club at impact, and life in general. Further in his research he came across the classic Greek Stoics, Marcus Aurelius and Seneca, who focus on accepting external events with equanimity.
He began looking for competitions. In early 2024 he entered some local events, qualified for the California Amateur with a birdie on the last hole, and in all was getting his competitive legs back in play. By the time qualifying for the USGA Mid-Amateur Championship, they had become sturdy. To get into the championship itself there was regional qualifying at the Marin CC, in August. He birdied the last hole for a round of 69, and was a co-medalist with three other players. In the playoff for three places, he birdied the first hole and was in. After nearly a decade of basically no golf at all, let alone competitive golf, and coming off a debilitating sickness, he played himself into a major amateur championship; his first one.
The championship proper was played in Virginia, beginning with two qualifying rounds that led to the match-play component of the event. With rounds of 73-69 Adam qualified in the middle of the field. His demeanor was a total turn-around from his past history. He didn’t quite shrug off a missed putt, but it was only that – a shrug, then onward. His first match was a close one that he won one-up. His second match, against a fellow who had played pro tournament golf and had regained his amateur status, was also a close one; It went to the last hole, and Adam lost, one-down.
It was a stellar overall performance given the circumstances leading up to it. In 2025 he had a fair competitive season, highlighted once again by qualifying for the Mid-Amateur. With his knack for strong finishes, as the last man standing with a chance to qualify, he holed a five-foot putt on the 18th hole to gain a spot in the championship. He didn’t make it into match-play this time around, but that’s golf. And no matter. He absorbed the disappointment, not with total equanimity, of course, but not at all with the anger and self-doubt of the past. He became a new man, in the greater sense of the term.
Success in golf, or any action that involves others in opposition cannot be controlled by oneself; the other guy may be a little better or luckier that day and so it goes. The contest with oneself is very singular. It was a win Adam has managed; an impressive, proud achievement.