Abby the Golf Dog

We moved out to the Reynolds Golf Course in October of 1987. A little over a year after that we brought a little Yellow Lab puppy home for our kids that would become not only a wonderful family pet but would also become somewhat of a legend at the golf course. We lived next to Number 9 fairway for 16 years. Abby was there for 15 of those years.



No doubt Abby would have made a great retriever on a dove field. But instead she became a golf ball retriever and everybody that played golf in Reynolds knew her well.

Her days were spent on the golf course and she was trained by all the golfers.

You could hit balls as long as you wanted and she would retrieve them for you. Bring the ball back and drop it down for you to hit again.

She knew the golf course as well as anyone playing. And she also had golf etiquette. She would quit panting when you were addressing the ball and when you finished putting she would walk to the next tee to wait on you.

She also would dive for a ball in any of the ponds to retrieve your ball. She would literally disappear under water… sometimes she would come up with a mouth full of balls.

I saw many a golfer arguing on the first hole when a golfer would be convinced his opponent hit the ball in the water but when they got there the ball would be sitting in the middle of the fairway.

Abby would watch the golfers tee off and she played favorites. She always looked after her owner. If I was playing with 3 other folks and two of us hit the ball in the water, she would always retrieve my ball to give me the advantage. My opponent’s ball would still be in the water.

If a golfer was not nice to her she would take his ball out of the fairway and drop it in the water.

Many times if I was riding in a cart she would pick up golf balls that may have been in the middle of the fairway and bring them to me and drop them in my cart. I tried to break her from that…. But I didn’t try too hard. I always had plenty of golf balls. There is no telling how many golf balls were under our carport.

She usually slept with at least two golf balls in her mouth. I’m serious. I think she had a thing for golf balls.

Ed Cooper, who ran the golf course during those years, used her to retrieve balls from the ponds and he would re-sell the balls in the pro shop. At least once a week he took her out to dive for balls in the ponds.

He had fifty cent balls and dollar balls in two jars. And 90% of them were retrieved by Abby.

We moved to Warner Robins when Abby was too old to enjoy golf anymore. She lived out her last days in a strange land. Kathy called me the morning Abby died and she was so upset I thought something had happened to one of the kids.

The Taylor County News ran her obituary the day after her death. In lieu of flowers, the family suggested fried chicken to be sent to the house.

Abby was cremated and her ashes are in an urn on our bookcase in our den. There is a likeness of her in statue form attached to the top of the urn. Her little memorial not only gives me many opportunities to tell others about our amazing Abby, but more importantly it gives me opportunity to recall and share some wonderful memories I shared with my dad, my boys, my brothers, my friends and my dad’s friends at the Reynolds Golf Course.

It doesn’t take long to lose the smell of a new car and we eventually trade it in for another. We get too fat for our favorite pants and have to buy new ones. Our furniture wears out and carpet has to be replaced. The value goes down in those things over time.

But great memories increase in value as we get older.

Abby’s urn and statue always reminds me of that.

But you know what?

We never did get the first piece of fried chicken.