Mike Weir’s daughters are all grown up, but being a dad has played a significant part of the golfer’s career, making Father’s Day especially significant to the Masters winner from Brights Grove, Ont.
Weir’s daughters—Elle, 24, and Lilly, 20—are both chasing their dreams, with Elle trying to crack the ranks of photography, and Lilly working her way through college in environmental science.
While Weir’s daughters are busy these days—Elle is in New York working, while Lilly is in Colorado at college—for the last few years of his forties, the golfer was nearly a full-time dad. Weir, who went through a divorce, altered his schedule significantly prior to heading to turning 50 and playing on PGA Tour Champions to spend time with his daughters.
“It was just a point in my life where things were changing and I wanted to be home a lot more,” Weir says from his home in Utah. “It was just important that I was there for the girls, though I continued to play golf.”
Happy 19th Lili! Fun hike fisher towers yesterday pic.twitter.com/DNUtQWQwFH
— Mike Weir (@mweirsy) April 3, 2019
One thing is clear—Weir certainly appreciated his own dad’s sacrifices after becoming a father himself. Both of Weir’s daughters played competitive soccer and Mike recalls traveling all over bringing them to games. It led to a greater appreciation of what his own father, Rich, went through.
“It was travel baseball or hockey or all those early golf tournaments,” says Weir, a Golf Town ambassador. “As I got older, we’d all pile into one car and someone would drive, but for all those early years my dad drove everywhere. And you don’t really appreciate that until you become a parent and start doing it yourself.”
Weir’s connection to his dad, now 84, is still key, though Covid kept the U.S.-based golfer from seeing his parents for almost two years. He finally got to visit them last summer after he played a tournament in Michigan and was able to drive back across the Canadian border.
Rich, a mid-handicap golfer who introduced his son to the game, has regularly watched his son play since the golfer cracked the PGA Tour in 1998. But with Weir now on PGA Tour Champions, he admits his father isn’t always up for the travel. But in past years, Weir took his dad to Augusta, and it was Rich who was the first to hug his son when Mike won the 2003 Masters.
“The hills are too much for him these days,” says Weir. “But he came for a long time to watch me play and is really important to helping me get to where I am today.”
Still, Father’s Day will be special this year. Weir’s mother and father, along with siblings and Elle, who is flying in from New York, will spend time together in northern Ontario following the RBC Canadian Open in Toronto.
“It’ll be great to have nearly everyone together,” Weir says, adding he’s spending time with Lilly before heading to St. George’s for the RBC Canadian Open.
And don’t think for a moment that Weir feels he’s a ceremonial golfer heading to the RBC Canadian Open. Coming off a Top 10 finish at the first PGA Tour Champions major of the year, Weir says he can be competitive at St. George’s, a course he last played competitively in 2010.
“If my short game matches up with my ballstriking, I can play well [at St. George’s],” Weir says. “I wouldn’t show up if I was just a ceremonial golfer. I feel I can compete there.”