By STEVE CORNELIUS, CJ Sports Editor
Somerset — Golf is one of the few sports where a father and a son can spend a lifetime of playing and competing against each other.
Millions of fathers and sons around the world have spent countless hours on the links bonding and spending quality time together.
Golf is a nice, relaxing activity that allows a father and son to enjoy their surroundings without the pressures of the outside world.
However, you might have a hard time convincing Mickey Ray, and his son Michael Ray, that golf is a leisurely father-son sport.
Yes, the Rays have spent countless hours together going from tee to green, but these two take their game of golf a little bit more serious than your average father-son.
Over the past four years, Mickey and Michael Ray have won three Kentucky Golf Association Father-Child Championships. Most recently, the Rays won the 2009 KGA event at Andover Golf & Country Club with a two-day total of 16-under par, which included a first-day (-10) two-man scramble and a second-day (-6) two-man best ball.
The Rays claimed back-to-back state titles in 2006 and 2007.
Both, Mickey and Michael sport impressive one-handicaps and have the unique ability to compliment each other’s ‘already strong’ games.
“We both shoot about the same, but I have a little better short game and Michael hits his drives better and can really putt,” Mickey Ray said. “We have played in (the KGA Father-Child Championship) for about 10 years and we have always been competitive in the event. We just have been on a good run these past couple of years.”
Both, Mickey and Michael enjoyed stellar high school and college golf careers prior to working together at Modern Vending.
“We play golf together, we work together and we go to church together,” Mickey Ray said. “I have really been blessed in that sense.”
Both played their high school golf at Somerset High School, while Mickey went on to play at the University of Kentucky from 1974 to 1978 and Michael played on the Transylvania University golf team from 1999 to 2003.
With two top-notch, highly-competitive golfers like Mickey Ray and Michael Ray, a ‘friendly round of golf’ is not something these two often partake in.
“We are always competing against each other every time we go out and play a round of golf,” Mickey Ray said. “Neither one of us like to lose to one another and no matter who wins, we always brag to other family members about it.”
“As Michael was growing up, I never let him win and I always played as hard as I could against him,” Mickey Ray recalled. “I can’t remember when he first beat me in golf. I was probably glad to see him finally beat me, but I wasn’t happy about it.”
Mickey Ray says he picked up the game of golf from his father Bill Ray, and it wasn’t long before father and grandfather passed on the Ray golfing secrets to Michael.
“I think I had a set of golf clubs before I was even born,” laughed Michael Ray. “My father and grandfather taught me how to play golf. My dad taught me until he was tired of me, and then I would get instruction from my grandfather until he got tired of me.”
And now that Michael’s 2-year-old son, Jaxson is beginning to swing a golf club, Mickey Ray has the newest golf prodigy in the Ray family.
“We are already working with Jaxson, but his grip is terrible,” Mickey joked about his toddler grandson. “And for some reason, we can’t keep him focused.”
