OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — Domingo Maturey of Overland Park loves golf. So much so that even when he traveled for work, his wife would urge him to get out on the course during his weekends at home.
“She’d say, ‘The yard can wait,’” he remembers. “Go play golf.”
And so, Mingo, as his golfing buddies know him, would.
Years later, Mingo would play again, for the love of golf and his first love: his wife, Lana. 38 years into their marriage, she passed after a valiant fight with a rare form of cancer.
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Five years on, lonely and still grieving his loss, Mingo was back home in southwest Kansas visiting his dad in Satanta, when it hit him.
“I played the course and this lady was there and she signed my card for me, and I decided to play Kansas,” he recalls.
And he means that literally– golf at a course in all 105 counties.
“I did think it was 105, but it turned out to be 103!”
So, in 2016, he began his “long drives,” dividing Kansas into six regions.
“I’d pack up my suitcase and just take off.”
No tee times, no reservations, and often not even knowing where a county’s golf course was, Mingo would set out for two-week jaunts at a time. He’d pull into the county seat and ask for directions to the nearest golf course.
“Just about every course I went to that, I met people. They were really nice.”
He started in southwest Kansas, where he grew up, and worked his way around the state, playing nine or 18-hole courses. He often played three times a day, one in each county.
He remembers one stop in Cloud County in north-central Kansas, pulling into Concordia as a long summer day was coming to an end. He was invited to join the Men’s League, and when they learned of his travels, one of the guys in his group snuck a call into the local newspaper.
“About the third or fourth hole, here comes a golf cart coming towards me,” Mingo remembered. “And it’s the reporter for the Concordia newspaper.”
His story made that week’s front page.
The next morning, when he arrived at his next stop in Seneca, the man who’d called the newspaper had called ahead to cover Mingo’s greens fees.
His time on those “long drives” (except 2020 during the pandemic) helped him make a lot of new memories. Strangers offered housing, golf carts, access and, best of all, friendship.
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All with the memory of his beloved bride in the back of his mind, easing the pain of her loss with each round.
“I had to go on with life, but she’ll always be in my heart.”
In 2023, Mingo completed his long drives with a round of golf in Iola. His late wife was along for each “drive.”
And as for those two counties that don’t have golf courses. Mingo says if Doniphan and Elk ever build golf courses, he’ll play them too, to finish off his “long drive.”
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