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Course
designer leaves legacy of golf, funny tales
By Steve Elling | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted January 5, 2005
David Harman had a well-deserved, long-cultivated reputation as a
practical joker. At 6 feet 6 and 300 pounds, when he
laughed, walls tended to shake, and so did Harman.
For the victims, it was sometimes more of a shudder.
One of his favorite tricks got plenty of mileage, quite
literally. Somewhere along the line, Harman bought a gag
baby diaper, replete with faux colorings and a complete payload,
if you will. When he was flying around the globe to inspect
one of his golf-course design projects, he would tuck the
soiled diaper into the pocket of the seat in front of him
and play dumb.
"Then he'd say, 'Stewardess, I think we have a problem
here,' " said Dennis Harman, Dave's older brother.
If the hallmark of a good funnyman is always to leave them
wanting more, then Harman accomplished that and then some
over his years of building golf courses and friendships. He
was buried Tuesday at Dr. Phillips Cemetery after losing a
lengthy battle with cancer at age 51.
If you've ever pulled a club from a bag in the Orlando area,
odds are decent that you have played one of Harman's
designs, which include Orange County National in Winter
Garden, Magnolia Plantation in Lake Mary, Shingle Creek in
Orlando and a new private course near Sorrento, RedTail Golf
Club.
He left a professional legacy that will endure for decades.
There are good golf courses situated on nearly every street
corner in this town, but not nearly enough guys built along
the lines of Harman, who is survived by a wife and three
children.
One of his old golf caps was placed atop his large coffin
during Tuesday's memorial service at St. Luke's Methodist
Church, which was conducted before a packed house. Trust us,
it has been a long time since so many folks associated with
the Orlando golf industry shed so many tears -- between
laughs, of course.
The services were part testimonial, part stand-up comedy.
Harman, who died Dec. 28, even requested that a Broadway
show tune be included among the hymnals. No question, he
would have loved the fact that the church organist played
the more somber tunes only after kicking off his wingtips.
The four men who offered remembrances were told to keep it
short and sweet. With respect to the former, the foursome
failed spectacularly, launching into a series of funny
anecdotes. Some folks have a charisma that attracts friends
who stick like magnets to a refrigerator. Harman's buddies
from Michigan's tiny Hillsdale College turned out in droves
for the service, with old friend Tom Klix offering a Delta
ditty on a harmonica during the eulogy.
Klix met Harman as a freshman in 1971, when both were
digging in for their first day in the dormitory. Harman
walked across the hall, stuck out a paw and essentially
introduced himself thusly: "Do you like football? Do you
like beer?"
Harman started building courses while he was still in
college, working summers for Jack Nicklaus' booming design
firm and handling the heavy equipment like a kid with
oversized Tonka toys. Harman later worked under Arnold
Palmer, whose firm has built hundreds of courses worldwide.
Nice mentors, obviously.
"How many people can say they've had that opportunity and
can put that in their book?" said Orlando course developer
Ed Bignon, who spoke at the service. "Pretty impressive."
He formed his own course-construction company in 1980 and
eventually relocated to Orlando, where he bought a large
bachelor pad near the Bay Hill Club & Lodge. Guests said his
worldly possessions consisted of a bed, chair and TV, not to
mention two slobbering bulldogs, one of which he named
"Sweaty Betty."
The affable Harman apparently realized that you can't grow a
golf course without using a load of fertilizer. His gift for
spreading the bull, shall we say, was unsurpassed and stood
as one of his most endearing qualities.
"He could tell a story like nobody you ever saw in your
life," said Bignon, who was blindsided by many of Harman's
pranks over the years. "And he could make you believe it."
Over a cold beer, Harman could relate not-so-tall tales of
his days in Palmer's employ that made you laugh so hard,
you'd nearly fall off the barstool. Some of the stories
involved wild-eyed friends and famous golfers who actually
did fall off barstools. In the very wee hours.
Some involved him, too. When Harman was still in high
school, his mom called brother Dennis in a frantic huff to
explain that David had just "disgraced the family." Turns
out that Harman and some members of the football team had
driven down the main drag of a rival school, "flashing what
is commonly referred to as a moon cluster," Dennis laughed.
Many Orlando luminaries came out for the services, including
PGA Tour veteran and longtime pal Scott Hoch, Lee Rawls and
Gary Myers of the Disney golf division, Dave Scott of
Shingle Creek, plus Jim Bell and Roy Saunders from Bay Hill.
Harman was a self-effacing sort who never let a few awards
swell his increasingly bald head. When his Kauri Cliffs
design in New Zealand was chosen the best international
course of 2001 by Golf Digest, Harman all but
laughed. Perched on a seaside cliff, the original property
was truly spectacular.
Laughed Harman in an aside: "I just tried not to screw it
up. Any idiot could have built a great course there. So they
obviously hired the right guy."
He branched from construction into design in 1996 and had
been working steadily ever since then. The last laugh,
apparently, was on his industry friends who thought he was
crazy.
"I never thought he could do it, but he pulled it off,"
Bignon said at the service. "And he did it while the golf
industry was in the tank."
Steve Elling can be reached at selling@orlandosentinel.com. |
