This week, exactly 40 years since I followed Arnold Palmer around the course of Augusta National as he won the 1964 Masters, I watched him walk the final fairway as he completed one of the longest and greatest careers in the history of world sport. Then, he sat down and talked about his father and started to cry. He allowed himself to be led into a few words about his emotional relationship with his Army. I shared and shed a tear at his tribute to their loyalty. They had given him in return the greatest of all tributes: enduring respect for the kind of man he was.

Naturally, it reminded me of my father, the same kind of man, who died 25 years ago. My Dad was a great golfer. But, the greatness was not the many accomplishments he gave to the game; it was the way he allowed the game to give to him, and how he built it as the very foundation of his admirable character. Character is, as they say, destiny. And, it can only be built to the highest standard by a lifetime of self-examination, determination and habit.

John S. Roberts began life as the poor son of a bitter street car conductor who drank too much and yelled at his wife all the time. He began golf as a caddie, but probably swung as many clubs as he carried. He watched, and learned about much more than golf from the men he served. He caddied for men like Eddie Rickenbacker, the hero of World War I and Eastern Air Lines, a very tough and disciplined fighter pilot and businessman. By the time the young man was 17, he was the champion of Detroit; a year later, runner-up in Michigan. At the same time, he became an Eagle Scout, and pushed boxes in a Woolworth store to begin a career. He wanted to be a golf pro, but the depression was not a good time for that risk, and he had a new family to feed.

So, he began to work hard and impress his bosses in the great F.W. Woolworth Company, once America's first and greatest retailer, one of the 30 Dow Jones Industrials. I doubt if he could have dreamed that he would one day sit at the top of what was then the highest building in the world and manage that vast, worldwide retailing empire. I doubt if he could have known that he would one day play golf with the president’s cabinet ministers and be the man who welcomed Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus and a hundred others to Baltusrol Golf Club to play in the United States Open Championship. He could not have known he would be invited to serve on the board of directors of great New York banks and insurance companies, not because of his expertise in their industries, or the game of golf, but because of the simple but shining character he was beginning to build on the golf course.

Golf gave him that character, because that is the kind of game it is. Physically, golf is a universal sport, something many can play, yet a game of great coordination and judgment that requires exceptional control of strength, restraint of power and merging of concentration. The same old golf joke always brings a laugh: the gorilla who could drive the ball 300 yards, but putted the same way. The game provides unusual time to think and decide, or not to, about how to play it stroke by stroke. The brain and the club and the ball and the course and the backdrop of the whole game are always linked together in a single experience.

Golf, however, is also a game of character. It is a game of self-enforced rules and subtle forms of courtesy and good manners, of adherence to custom and respect for tradition, of friendship and humor and sincerity, of courage and strength, of care and deference to caddies, colleagues and kings. It is a game for professionals, even if you are an amateur. Play a round of golf with someone, and you will know him. Take the qualities to the board room and they apply, especially in those great corporations of men like Frank Woolworth who are now almost gone.

My Dad was always a strong man, he always knew what he was doing. He was able to build his self-confidence on a bed of humility. Every year he would leave his tower and his famous club and rich associates and return to Detroit to play golf for a weekend with the old friends he learned the game with, still working on the auto line. They would laugh and kid and try like hell to beat each other, and I know those rounds were the best they all played in their entire lives because the bond of friendship was as strong and happy as ever, so much more important than the changes of time. Then, he would lead the Baltusrol team on the annual exchange with St. Andrews, the first home of golf in Scotland, and soak up the tradition of the sport he loved with the poor cousins of his ancestors.

Once, on a trip to Britain to visit the Woolworth company of that country, he was asked if there was anything he wanted to do. Yes, he said, I would like to go to Wales and see the village where my great-grandfather was a coal miner. Those fools in the society of classes sent a great white Rolls Royce to pick him up and drive him around that terrible, dirty town, where a few sooty men rose up from the ground to walk home in silence and glare at the rich gentleman who was probably the cause and benefactor of their misery. He told me about it in sadness, and told me not to forget the simple, uneducated founder of our family who had the courage to move to America to find a better life. He told me never to forget where we came from.

Then, exactly at the peak of his accomplishments, just before he retired and looked forward to time for lots of golf for the first time in his life, he was told he was going to die, but probably not for years as the disease slowly wore away at him. He played the game with passion to the very end without changing his demeanor or his attitude. In the final days he told me it was coming, about the only time we had a private and personal conversation. Gone to our own worlds, neither of us had discovered the value of such things with each other. I had just come from my years as a fighter pilot, I had lost friends, and my culture of war and focus was to shove the wreckage aside and keep on going.

He said we were not going to cry, and he said take care of your Mother. And, that was that. Two tough guys who never felt they needed each other or knew how . I didn’t tell him how much I loved and respected him, and he never told me he was proud of me for all the things I had done. When I came home from Vietnam, and I took him to watch the launch of a flight of  the mighty roaring fighter I had flown for so many years, the greatest machine every operated by man, the squadron of 60 strong men I was leading, he looked at me in a certain way and kind of nodded his head, and I knew he understood, and it didn’t need to be said. I had not followed him down the fairway. I had, as Frost said, chosen a different road, the one less traveled, and it made all the difference for me.  I watched the color drain from his strong face the moment he died, and took my Mother home in silence. The church was full. The company died. The golf transcends.

Despite all the lonely weekends – Mom even learned to play the game a little, but rarely with him, of course – she loved and supported and respected him as much as any wife could. Because he was a man of character and kindness who directed it at her whenever he could, they had a long and happy marriage. They had met in a Woolworth store, she behind the candy counter, he bringing her boxes, smiling at her shyness. They had done it all together, all the way to the top, and she knew the golf was as much a part of him as her beloved children were of her. I have no doubt that he told her he couldn’t have done it without her.

Integrity for all of us, not just those with responsibility, is more than just honesty; it is the consistency of thought, word and deed. Say what you think and do what you say. Think a lot about it, and build it into a diamond-hard core over a lifetime so you will be ready when the inevitable challenges come. Near the end of his career, Dad was the District Manager in Philadelphia, with about eight states under his control. He received a notice that his new Assistant Manager had been assigned, who happened to be the son of a member of the board of directors. He was not qualified, it was nepotism, pure as can be. So, Dad called up the president and refused to accept the appointment. It would not be good for the company. He thought he would be fired, despite his 35 years in the firm. Instead, the board realized what they had. They withdrew the order, and he was promoted to Executive Vice President a few months later. I know he didn’t have to think about it for a minute, couldn’t have accepted that innocent, unknown man into a job he couldn’t handle any more than he would have accepted a man of poor character into his foursome on the golf course, no matter what his handicap.

Each of us finds our own character. It sometimes takes a very long time on a winding road strewn with errors and challenges. Mine was built in Vietnam, when I faced my responsibilities, and in my marriage to a good woman who taught me much, but not enough. But, the best way to do it is to have a strong leader to emulate, and to keep on trying and building, and always to refuse to quit when the going gets tough. If you keep your self-respect, you can do anything. That’s what I’m still doing, because I know that is how Arnie did it, and how my Dad did it, and now even how my strong children are doing it. If my Dad were here now, I think we would finish that conversation. I know now I am going to have one with my children long before the chance is gone. Step by step, shot by shot, we are going to win.