HAVEN, Wis. -- Katherine Townsend was among millions of golf fans watching the second round of the PGA Championship on TV, but among the precious few paying closer attention to the bottom of the leaderboard than the top.
She had her reasons to be closely watching Charles Frost, the 39-year-old club pro from Kiawah Island, South Carolina, who would finish his 36 holes at 15-over par. Frost was a close friend of Townsend's 32-year-old husband, Michael, another Kiawah club pro who recently won his sectional championship in Myrtle Beach and qualified for a PGA Tour event.
Michael Townsend won his trophy, a $9,500 first prize, and his spot with the big boys in either the 2016 Wells Fargo Championship or the 2016 Wyndham Championship, his choice. This happened on July 30, nine days before Townsend died in a single-car accident in Johns Island, South Carolina. The tragedy left Townsend's wife Katherine in her childhood home in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina, on Friday, knowing that her daughter Ana Kate turned 1-year-old on Aug. 8, the date of her father's death. She will live a life of birthdays that also serve as tributes to an adoring father she never really knew.
Townsend's 3-year-old son Spencer is a Jordan Spieth fan who already has a Jordan Spieth swing. In fact, when Michael Townsend won that Carolinas PGA sectional, Spencer told his family that Dadu -- he prefers Dadu to Daddy -- had just defeated Spieth to take the title.
Oh yeah, and Spencer assured his family one other thing about his favorite Masters and U.S. Open champ:
Dadu's runner-up, Jordan Spieth, would now attend Spencer's birthday party.
As it turned out, Spencer's Dadu made his presence felt at Whistling Straits in a profound way. Michael Townsend's generosity of spirit compelled Frost to make him a part of his PGA Championship experience, starting with his choice of footwear. Townsend had a thing for funny, statement-making socks, so Frost went with Batman socks one day, Superman socks the next.
Of course he did. Frost and Townsend had started work at Kiawah on the same day, with Townsend becoming the head pro at the club's Cassique Course, and Frost the head pro at the club's River Course. As much as the members and staffers tried to juice up the good-natured rivalry between them, Townsend and Frost were friends first, competitors second.
Frost said he loved Townsend's quick-witted and self-deprecating ways on the golf course. He once watched Townsend drain 10 birdie putts and shoot 9 under in a round yet still complain about unforced errors made along the way.
Townsend was a daring player, especially with a driver in his hand.
"He'd hit driver everywhere," Frost recalled. "If a hole was 400 yards with a dogleg right, he'd try to slice it around the corner, just do crazy stuff like that. He was finally growing out of that a little bit. I thought his best golf was ahead of him."
Townsend was peaking for sure. He defeated Frost by 4 strokes to win on July 30, earning his fantasy ticket to a PGA Tour event, and he was preparing to travel to Whistling Straits to support his colleague. Frost was halfway out the door on his way to the airport and his first appearance in a major last Saturday when the call came with news of the accident.
Reports said Townsend's car flipped and hit a tree in the middle of night. Frost knew that his fellow pro would've demanded he go ahead and play the PGA Championship. When he arrived the next day in the Whistling Straits parking lot, Frost fell into the arms of his caddie, Clint Lingenfelder. The two men wept and held onto each other for three minutes that felt like 10.
Lingenfelder has worked at Kiawah for nine years, and he described Townsend as a teacher who treated caddies and members with the same degree of respect.
"And Mike had explosive firepower as a player," Lingenfelder said. "I've never seen anyone put together birdies like Mike could. He had incredible talent, and yet I can't emphasize how much of a better person he was than a player. No matter what kind of day you were having, he could put a smile on your face."
Late Sunday afternoon, Frost and Lingenfelder decided to squeeze in nine holes of practice. The caddie noticed Tiger Woods and Jason Dufner playing together. Just for the fun of it, Lingenfelder suggested that the club pro ask Woods and Dufner if they wanted a game.
"No," Frost told him. "This one needs to be just you and I. This one needs to be about Michael."
So the caddie and club pro traded Michael Townsend stories on the shores of Lake Michigan. Three days later, the founder of Stitch golf apparel, Charlie Burgwyn, sent a warm note and a set of head covers ordered by Townsend to Frost. They were dreadful looking, black leather covers with 3-inch bands of what appeared to be faux alligator skin, and Townsend's name was stitched on them.
Frost and Lingenfelder laughed. This was fun-loving Michael Townsend to a tee, they thought. Lingenfelder could imagine Townsend calling him into the shop and boasting about how beautiful these head covers looked.
"Let's put them on," the caddie told his man, "and let's go take Mike for a walk around Whistling Straits."
It was a good walk unspoiled. On the 10th tee Thursday, his first of the tournament, Frost surveyed the family and friends around him and tried to temper his runaway emotions.
"To not see Michael there," Frost said as he choked back tears, "was very, very tough for me."
Frost shot an ultra-respectable 76 in the first round, and returned Friday for a tee time fit for a club pro -- 6:45 a.m. local -- hoping to do a little better than that. He was wearing a cap with the initials "MT" written in black marker on its right side, and he felt Townsend's presence on each and every stroke.
Frost shot 83, the most inspiring 83 of the major championship season. He hugged his mother and his pregnant wife, and then spoke of "the loving, back-and-forth banter" that defined his relationship with the man who won't get to make that tour appearance he earned.
"As self-deprecating as Michael could be about his own game," Frost said, "he's one of the few people that can say he won his last golf tournament."
Speaking by phone from the Carolinas, Townsend's sister, Ana, said her big brother's victory in the sectionals, coupled with the tributes paid to him at the PGA Championship, "made us feel like he really went out on top." Yes, Michael Townsend's family wanted to honor him by telling the story of a life that ended much too soon.
Townsend's father, Wayne, said his own father, Arthur, was an 82-year-old golfer who could still shoot in the 70s and who stood as the reason Michael was the competitor he'd become.
But Wayne Townsend, grieving parent, wanted it known that he wasn't nearly as proud of his son's scorecards as he was of his son's treatment of those around him.
"From caddies to pros to the owners of Kiawah," Wayne said, "he was a best friend to everyone. When he won that tournament, some pros hung around long after they were done playing to congratulate him. Michael had that quality, and that's what makes this even more tragic."
Wayne Townsend agreed with Frost and Lingenfelder: Michael would've been angry that people were talking about him when a golf tournament was going on. Too bad.
"To him, this would've been unnecessary," his wife Katherine said. "To me it's beautiful."
Katherine thanked PGA Tour pro Russell Henley, another friend of Michael's, for also showing his support by sending her a picture of the funky socks he'd wear on the course in Michael's honor. She said Jordan Spieth had signed a cap for her son, Spencer, when Spieth got word that the boy was a big fan. But while watching the first-round highlights from Whistling Straits on Thursday night, Katherine pointed at the image of the 22-year-old superstar on her TV screen and turned toward her 3-year-old.
"Look Spencer," she said. "It's Jordan. Is he your favorite golfer?"
"No," the boy responded. "Dadu is."
The same Dadu who had defeated the great Spieth in a 3-year-old's mind on July 30, when a good man named Michael Townsend won a golf tournament that had no business being his last.