The Flag I Needed to Make Before I Left

This is Part 2 of my series, How to Leave Something the Right Way.

Before I left Virtues Golf Club, there was one project I really wanted to finish.

It wasn’t about revenue.

It wasn’t about course conditions.

It wasn’t even really about me.

I wanted the people who came after us to know something about the people who came before them.

Over the years, a lot of passionate golf professionals had called that place home. General managers, head golf professionals, assistant professionals, and other people who had poured a piece of themselves into Longaberger Golf Club and later Virtues Golf Club.

People move on.

Names change.

Companies change.

Eventually, even the people who remember the old stories move on too.

I didn’t want all of that history to simply disappear.

So I decided to make a flag.

Twelve People, One Golf Club

There were 12 of us I wanted represented.

Different positions. Different periods. Different experiences.

But we all shared something.

At some point in our lives, we had called Longaberger Golf Club home.

The problem was that everybody had moved on. We weren’t all living nearby anymore. Getting 12 people together to physically sign a bunch of flags wasn’t realistic.

So I cheated a little.

I went digital.

I asked everyone to take a picture of their signature and send it to me.

I know enough graphic design to be dangerous, so I took those signatures into Adobe Illustrator and started laying them out on a Longaberger Golf Club flag.

Eventually, all 12 signatures were together.

I had the flags produced and gave one to each person. I kept two for myself.

We also created a shadow box for the golf shop with the signatures, the names, and a little bit about the people represented there.

That shadow box was probably the most important part to me.

Because the flags belonged to us.

The shadow box belonged to the club.

Golf Clubs Have Memories

I’ve spent most of my adult life around golf courses.

One thing I’ve learned is that a golf club is much more than its golf holes.

There are people behind everything.

Someone fought for that renovation.

Someone hired that employee.

Someone planted those trees.

Someone created that tournament.

Someone stayed late when something went wrong.

Someone cared when nobody was watching.

Then eventually, that person leaves.

A new person comes in.

A few years pass, and nobody remembers why things are the way they are.

I wanted somebody working at Virtues years later to be able to look at that shadow box and realize:

There were people here before me who really cared about this place.

Maybe they would recognize a name.

Maybe they would ask a question.

Maybe somebody would tell them a story.

That’s enough.

One More Time

There was another part of the project that I didn’t completely understand until after it was finished.

I had brought all 12 of us back together.

Not physically.

We weren’t standing in the same room.

But our names and signatures were together again on that Longaberger flag.

For one more moment, all of us were connected to the place we once called home.

I was proud of that.

Really proud.

Even today, I can picture that flag almost instantly. I know exactly what it looks like.

And every once in a while, I look at one of the flags I kept and think about everybody whose signature is on it.

We all went different directions.

Different jobs.

Different courses.

Different lives.

But there was a period when our paths crossed because of one golf course in Ohio.

I got to bring those paths together one more time.

Now I Can Leave

Something happened inside me after I finished that project.

I remember thinking:

Now I can move on.

There were still things I could have done at Virtues.

There are always more projects at a golf course. You could stay another 20 years and still leave something unfinished.

But this one mattered differently.

I felt like we had preserved a little piece of the club’s history.

More importantly, we had acknowledged the people who helped create that history.

That gave me closure.

Maybe that’s part of leaving something the right way.

Before you worry about what you’re taking with you, spend a little time thinking about what you’re leaving behind.

It doesn’t have to be a flag.

It doesn’t have to be something hanging on a wall.

Maybe it’s a program you built.

Maybe it’s someone you trained.

Maybe it’s a relationship you repaired.

Maybe it’s simply making sure the next person understands something that otherwise would have been forgotten.

We all eventually leave.

But that doesn’t mean everything we were part of has to disappear with us.

I hope that shadow box stays in the golf shop for a very long time.

But even if someday it doesn’t, I’m still glad we did it.

For one more time, 12 people who once called Longaberger Golf Club home were together again.

And after that, I knew I could leave.

---

This is Part 2 of my series, How to Leave Something the Right Way.

Is there a place from your past where you wish someone had preserved the people and stories that helped build it? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.