{"id":77,"date":"2010-09-10T02:24:59","date_gmt":"2010-09-10T02:24:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janinajacobs.com\/?p=77"},"modified":"2011-02-25T13:25:31","modified_gmt":"2011-02-25T13:25:31","slug":"madeline-joell-bermuda-s-golden-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/janinajacobs\/golf\/personalities\/77\/madeline-joell-bermuda-s-golden-girl","title":{"rendered":"Madeline Joell: Bermuda’s Golden Girl"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Cover Girl: Madeline Joell featured in Bermuda Business Magazine<\/p><\/div>\n

Gliding through the breezeway of Port Royal Golf Club on the west end of Bermuda, I saw Madeline for the first time.\u00a0 Of course I didn\u2019t know her name then but she was the kind of person whose presence and beauty escaped no one.\u00a0 Tall, willowy, and athletic, the bright buttercup yellow of her flowing silk business dress accented coal blue-black skin.<\/p>\n

\u201cHi, I\u2019m Madeline Joell.\u00a0 You must be playing in the tournament.\u00a0 I don\u2019t believe we\u2019ve met.\u201d\u00a0 She offered a handshake with the strong hands and arms indicative of a top golfer.\u00a0 She was a native Bermudian, yet had the accent of the island\u2019s Motherland, fluid, yet crisply British.\u00a0 A former Miss Bermuda, Madeline had competed in the Miss World and Miss Universe pageants back in the late 70\u2019s, and her poise was flawless.\u00a0 She had also been a ballet dancer until she had grown too tall, too muscular, for the male dancers to lift her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve lived here all my life and played golf with every good woman player around, and I know I\u2019ve never seen you before,\u201d she noted.\u00a0 I introduced myself.<\/p>\n

She was correct.\u00a0\u00a0 It was my first foray into island paradise golf.\u00a0 During the previous winter I\u2019d been travel-brochure cruising.\u00a0 Pictures of lazy-limbed palm trees waving toward azure waters gave temporary solace to the dreariness of yet another Detroit December.\u00a0 With minimal arm twisting, my trip to the Bermuda Stroke Play Championship run by the Bermuda Golf Association was set for June 1988.<\/p>\n

\u2018Tis not an easy thing to head for untried foreign land, alone.\u00a0 But with some help from the Bermuda Department of Tourism and their marvelous and complete tour booklet, I found a neat little family-owned boardinghouse motel painted cerulean blue that would have been strangely out of place anywhere else but here.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My travel agent, when people had such service representatives back in the olden days, had searched the usual methods and the best she could come up with was almost $300 per night.\u00a0\u00a0 At the last minute I convinced Sue, my restaurant manager, to take some much needed R&R and come along on the trip.\u00a0 She decided some serious beach time was in order. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 At $50 per night, our digs were perfect for what we needed. \u00a0 For me, the stunning Southampton Princess, now part of the Fairmont family of luxury resorts, was right next door.\u00a0 With its fabled Par-3 golf course, it was perfect for sneaking on to do a little bit of practice putting and chipping in the evening.\u00a0\u00a0 And Sue, though not a golfer, could enjoy the fabled pink sand shorelines of Bermuda simply by crossing South Shore road…..very carefully. \u00a0 On the taxi ride from the airport, our driver diverted to other roads because a fatal moped accident involving tourists had shut down our route.\u00a0 Sadly, I soon learned this was a common happening. \u00a0 When we arrived at the motel, Viv, our proprietor, offered to drive us to the store to buy groceries for our efficiency. \u00a0 Because of his reasonable rates, I could almost afford to buy some of Bermuda\u2019s sticker-shock $5.99 fresh cantaloupes and $5 milk.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t seem so expensive now.\u00a0 Viv also suggested a\u00a0 lift\u00a0to Port Royal G.C. so I wouldn’t have to haul my golf clubs on the back of the two-person moped I intended to rent the next day, that is, if I wanted my own mode of transportation on the island.\u00a0 Bermuda has a very strict policy on car ownership: one family, one car.\u00a0 No rentals.\u00a0\u00a0 So off I went with Viv.\u00a0 And that was when I saw the most beautiful practice range, ever.\u00a0 It wasn’t the range itself, which was normal with grass, teeing areas, and chopped up turf.\u00a0 Nope, it was what lay beyond all the golf balls at the far end of the downward sloping property:\u00a0 the Atlantic Ocean.\u00a0 The sun was setting through a maze of cumulus clouds.\u00a0 I watched the sunset for awhile and then made my way toward the adjacent clubhouse…..through its breezeway.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell Janina, let’s have a look here…” \u00a0\u00a0 Madeline checked the tee sheet posted on the club bulletin board and found our names listed. “I do believe we’re playing together on the first day of Stroke Play.\u00a0 Won\u2019t that just be superb?\u201d\u00a0 Madeline had a way of making even the simplest phrase sound elegant.\u00a0\u00a0 We chatted a bit more, and when she heard that my proprietor dropped me off and was waiting for a phone call to pick me up, she offered to drive me back to Viv’s place, which she knew by sight.\u00a0 After all, Bermuda is a small island about 21 miles long and 2 miles across at its widest point.\u00a0 The houses have names and everyone knows everyone, almost like the penultimate small town.\u00a0 I accepted, enthralled with the friendliness of the island I had set foot on\u00a0only a few\u00a0hours before.<\/p>\n

As it happened, all three days of the championship\u00a0Madeline\u00a0and I\u00a0were paired together, initiating what was to become a friendship that would extend for years.\u00a0 That week, Madeline played host and tour guide and drove me everywhere, which was quite handy considering Bermuda does not allow non-residents to rent or drive cars on the island, hence my moped rental.\u00a0 At the end of my visit, she had already invited me to return\u00a0in the fall as her guest and partner in the Bermuda Four-Ball Championship.\u00a0 For those unaware of what a Four-Ball is, think \u2018Ryder Cup\u2019, partners, and pressure.\u00a0 Add in a mix of pre and post-tournament social events and cocktail parties along with a Men’s Division so we could find some ‘pigeons’ to bet with during practice rounds, and you have the perfect week of fun in the sun.<\/p>\n

Over 10 years, Mady and I played in many more tournaments, moved into bigger and better homes, met with great success in our respective careers and businesses, and led adventurous lives that few folks are lucky enough to experience.\u00a0 She took me along to New Zealand as her caddie when the World Amateur was played in Christchurch in 1990.\u00a0 I remember the 36 hour succession of flights on cramped planes when I, in the middle seat, got not one\u00a0wink of sleep and Mady snoozed the whole time, which of course she would deny. \u00a0 The Committee had changed the rules that year and I wasn’t allowed to caddy, but it was still 3 weeks in a place most Americans never get to visit.\u00a0 \u00a0 Back in Bermuda, she began to let me drive her car \u2013 on the left or \u2018wrong\u2019 side of the road as it were \u2013 despite my never having applied for, nor acquired, an international driver\u2019s license.\u00a0 Good thing she and I routinely played golf with the local gendarmes, who usually kept me out of harm\u2019s way\u2026.except for that one time I got caught speeding, zipping about 45Km all through the winding streets of Hamilton and really, it is difficult to drive that slowly\u2026\u2026.but I digress.\u00a0 That\u2019s another story that shouldn’t see the light of day for at least another 10 or 20 years.<\/p>\n

We had the kind of friendship most women are unable to sustain:\u00a0 one requiring little upkeep and even less nurturing.\u00a0 Two or three times a year I\u2019d visit and play in Bermudian golf events or she would come to Detroit, a city she truly loved because of her new found friends here.\u00a0 People say a lot of negative things about the Motor City, but isn’t it ironic that of all the places someone who lives on a gorgeous\u00a0island should choose to vacation, it would be Detroit?\u00a0 We always discovered plenty of ways to create wonderful memories, including visits to her favorite courses, Pine Trace in Rochester Hills and Cherry Creek in Shelby Township\u00a0 She just adored the courses’ managing partner Mike Bylen and the rest of the staff including Jimmy Reading, Head Professional Jim Norgart, Megan Pike, and others.\u00a0 Oddly enough, it was in Bermuda that I too first formally met Mike – in almost exactly the same place I first saw Mady.\u00a0\u00a0 We discovered we frequently crossed fairways at Indianwood Golf Club in Lake Orion, Michigan, where I was a member and he played in a regular foursome with a member or two who didn’t believe in equal golf privileges\u00a0for women. \u00a0 Because of my work as a course ratings panelist for Golf Digest Magazine, I always had courses to rate and Mady provided some excellent perspectives when she was in town and could accompany me.\u00a0 Occasionally, Mike would join us and I’d relegate him to the back tee boxes.\u00a0 Mady hit the ball prodigious lengths, though the fast bent-grass greens gave her putting fits.\u00a0 That’s why we made up such a great partners team:\u00a0 she was long, sometimes wrong, and I was long enough, straight, steady, \u00a0and could putt.<\/p>\n

Back in Bermuda, or wherever she happened to be, she\u2019d occasionally \u2018give me a bell\u2019,\u00a0which is\u00a0Mady-speak for a phone call, and we\u2019d catch up on all we had missed for months.\u00a0 There was never any whining about not keeping in touch often enough.\u00a0 We simply picked up where we had left off last time and planned our next adventure, with no apologies.\u00a0 I\u2019d say we were more like guy buddies rather than girls, which made sense since we both existed in\u00a0predominantly\u00a0men’s sports and business worlds.<\/p>\n

In the late 90\u2019s, Madeline\u2019s position as a senior vice-president for Rollins-Burdick-Hunter took her all over the world and our schedules failed to gel.\u00a0 Twice we had made plans to connect at both the Mid-Ocean Invitational in Bermuda and at the Grand Opening of the new Mountain Ridge course at Crystal Mountain Resort in\u00a0Thompsonville, located in northern\u00a0Michigan.\u00a0\u00a0 And twice, due to business conflicts, we were forced to cancel those plans.\u00a0 Besides, there\u2019s always time to reschedule, right?<\/p>\n

In mid-March of 1999, a friend had called to tell me about this new wonder product, magnets for golfers with aches and pains.\u00a0 But she also had other news.\u00a0 While at a conference,\u00a0she ran into a golf professional who had asked her to convey condolences to me.\u00a0 News of Mady\u2019s death was inadvertently left on my voice mail.\u00a0 On Valentine\u2019s Day, at age 39, my friend Madeline Joell\u00a0had died suddenly of a brain aneurysm.<\/p>\n

Madeline was in the prime of her life.\u00a0 She had recently been elected to Parliament in Bermuda\u00a0and had competed in several more World Amateur Golf Championships, representing her beloved Bermuda.\u00a0 She had a new boyfriend after a painful divorce a few years earlier.\u00a0 All of Bermuda \u2013 politicians, golfers, performers, clients, employees, and friends \u2013 came to see her off.\u00a0 Everyone, that is, except me.\u00a0 Out of all these people, no one, not one person, had my new phone numbers from a recent move and did not know how to contact me.\u00a0 \u00a0Unfortunately, these were the days before e-mail and texting were popular.<\/p>\n

It is ironic that I, as a professional musician, am frequently called upon to sing and play at funerals, yet the one funeral I should have been attending, I didn\u2019t even know was happening.\u00a0\u00a0 Mady frequently marveled at my ability to perform the music at funerals, which is all too often part of my work.\u00a0\u00a0 “Doesn’t that get morbid for you?” she’d ask, curiously.\u00a0 Mady had some recordings I\u2019d cut a few years back and we would often sing along with the tapes as we zipped down the slim and winding Bermudian roadways in her meticulous Mazda.\u00a0 Mady was also tone-deaf.\u00a0 Yet when we sang together, she was mysteriously and gloriously on key.\u00a0 I could never explain the phenomenon but\u00a0 suffice it to say she loved to pretend she could sing\u2026..and I let her.<\/p>\n

Madeline Joell Warren would have been 40 in September of \u201999.\u00a0 Oh how she would have fought the thought.\u00a0 Of course there would have been the prerequisite \u2018Over the Hill\u2019 party, the sympathy cards, the practical jokes, and the Ben Gay samplers.\u00a0 And I, 43 at the time, had resisted the constant reminders of my own aging:\u00a0 gray hairs, facial lines,\u00a0less luminous\u00a0skin and eyesight a little less sharp than my former 20\/15 vision.\u00a0 Now, I think of her passing 50 and the adventures we would have added.\u00a0 For me and my 54 years, the stray grays have turned almost solidly silver, and a\u00a0few extra pounds have crept on despite diligent eating habits and daily 4 to\u00a06 mile fast-walks.\u00a0 I still<\/em> carry my clubs while walking\u00a0most courses, and the vision \u2013 well, let\u2019s just say I don\u2019t have to wear glasses yet, if the light is good.\u00a0\u00a0 But if I even begin to dwell on those signs of fading youth as they continue to appear, I have to remember that I, unlike Mady, have the honor of growing older, and by default, a little wiser.<\/p>\n

Mady was a shining star and vibrant beacon whose light will never dim.\u00a0 Just as the water droplets of a passing storm disperse the returning sunlight into a thousand shades of color in the rainbow, she will continue to cast her brilliant light into the hearts of all who knew her.\u00a0\u00a0 She was a woman of color and not in reference to skin but to heart and emotion and style.\u00a0 Her closet, which was actually a room converted into a clotheshorse fairyland, was crammed with tailored suits and dresses in\u00a0every hue.\u00a0 I know because I borrowed them on many occasions when we’d go to the prerequisite cocktail parties surrounding the tournaments.<\/p>\n

I haven’t returned\u00a0to Bermuda since Mady’s death but know that someday soon, when\u00a0I am ready, I’ll go.\u00a0\u00a0 I’ll visit the places we used to frequent and see some of the people we knew and played golf with.\u00a0\u00a0 However, reminisce as I may, it will never, ever, be the same.\u00a0 You see, Bermuda is an ethereal place.\u00a0 But now I know that what made it truly meaningful was the human experience and the way I was embraced by the people of this lovely island nation almost immediately.\u00a0\u00a0 In the years following Mady’s death I thought of dozens of ways to honor her, to let people know how special she was, but could never quite get it right.\u00a0\u00a0 Now, with an international stage here on\u00a0The A Position,\u00a0it’s time.<\/p>\n

When I finally do touch down over the pink sands and turquoise waters of Bermuda, one of the first stops will be graveside as I bid her a personal and long overdue ‘God Be With Ye’.\u00a0 It won’t be a\u00a0goodbye because\u00a0I don’t believe in those, as it is simply a matter of time before I’ll see her again.\u00a0\u00a0 If anyone strolling nearby should\u00a0hear a pure alto voice singing\u00a0strains of Amazing Grace – in key – you’ll know it is me…..though it could also be Mady joining along in a new and synchronized\u00a0perfection.<\/p>\n

And, true to form, I heard she was buried in red.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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