Adrian Davis
Ira Fair was the first golf coach I ever had. I started playing golf when I was 8 years old, when my dad signed my brother and I up for the Metropolitan Junior Golf Program. Coach Ira worked the range station, and he always made the game fun. There’s some phrases that I’ll never forget that he said, like “dollar for the bell!” for any student that could hit the bell on the range, or “and TURN” when he was teaching us how to rotate through the shot. But the phrase that I believe genuinely had the most profound impact on my life and enjoyment of the game was Ira’s patented “THERE YOU GO” when you hit a shot right in the sweet spot. There truly was no feeling quite like puring a shot and hearing that from Ira. As the years went on, I continued to learn from Ira, and I remember after the Saturday Junior program would end at 10 am, I would head to the range to hit more balls with Ira, and my dad would get me a hot dog and get Ira a strawberry smoothie from Costco just down the road- Ira loved that strawberry smoothie. Ira made golf fun for me, and more importantly, he made me want to get better at the game. As I kept playing, got better, and entered high school, I had a different coach at Metro, but I always swung by the far part of the range to say hi to Ira whenever he was there. He would always encourage me to keep going, and he told me about his playing days at Chico State when I told him I wanted to play in college and beyond. I ended up playing college golf, and teaching the game while in high school and college, truly using the same encouraging mindset that Ira instilled into me when he taught me the game. I would see him sporadically in those years, as he wasn’t at Metro as often with some surgeries, and I wasn’t either, going off to college and stepping away from the game competitively for a few years. Now, 25 years old and beginning my journey as a professional golfer, I’m truly grateful that I was blessed to have someone like Ira as my introduction to the game. He was genuinely one of the most positive people I’ve ever met, and he truly was able to share his love and passion for the game with the youth he worked with. I am deeply saddened to hear about his passing, and hope all is well for his family.
