Family, friends remember local 'legend'

Nine more holes of golf - for Bill Redmond, hope was being able to play nine more holes of golf.

With this in mind, Jill and Timothy Redmond fulfilled their late father's hope by playing in his honor on the weekend he had circled every year.

For the first time in exactly 50 years, Billy Gene Redmond, Kalispell native and beloved father of five, missed the Labor Day golf tournament at Buffalo Hill. He passed away on Aug. 26 after a year-and-a-half long battle with prostate cancer.

He was 78.

Exactly a week after Redmond's passing, golfers of all ages converged at Buffalo Hill to reconnect with old friends and squeeze in one last practice round before the start of the popular 73rd Labor Day tournament the following day.

Instead of watching their father tee off like he had every year since 1959, daughter Jill and son Tim played as a tribute while their sibling sisters Gwyn and Camilla prepared the funeral arrangements for last Monday's service.

"He put up a courageous fight and tried every way to fight it just to be able to golf nine more holes. That was his goal, nine more holes of golf," Jill said.

"His passion was golf, pheasant hunting and living life," Tim said. "He was a great dad and my best friend. He just had a personality that people wanted to be around and he'd do anything for anyone, even if it meant giving them the shirt off his back."

Born in Kalispell on June 2, 1932, Redmond went on to graduate from Flathead High in 1950. Redmond played football and baseball at the University of Montana and, instead of waiting to be drafted when the Korean War broke out, he left his athletic scholarship and enlisted in the Navy where he served until 1954. After that, he returned to college and went on to graduate.

He was a man people looked up to and wanted to be like. That's how it was for Kalispell native Chuck McDowell. In fact, McDowell said he followed the same career path - financial planning - probably thanks to the inspiration Bill Redmond provided.

"If you're going to try to summarize Bill in a nutshell, the guy in my personal opinion was just a consummate professional. He was very serious about the things he did, he was very dedicated to the different programs he was involved in and ran them the way they were supposed to be run. He lived life and was a family man," McDowell said before playing in the Labor Day tournament.

"The man is a legend. There's no replacing Bill Redmond. It won't be the same without him."

Golf was a lifelong passion for Redmond, and the sport loved him back, too. In August of 2000, Redmond made his seventh lifetime hole-in-one and won a 2001 Ford Explorer at the Governor's Cup tournament at Meadow Lake Golf Course.

"I hit a six iron and the golf gods put it in the hole," Redmond said of his ace at the time.

Later, he would say, "(Golf is) one of the toughest games there are and it's a therapeutic thing for me. If I have any personal or business problems, golfing takes those things away while I'm out on the course."

Redmond's love of sport carried him into refereeing, where he spent 40 years and was eventually inducted into the Montana Official's Association Hall of Fame.

But he always found his way back to the golf course. In fact, his home sat on the 11th fairway at Buffalo Hill, where he could look out at the landscape he loved.

His group of friends would meet numerous times a week at "high noon" for a game of golf at Buffalo Hill. It was this group of old timers that Tim grew up around and who became the role models he looked up to.

"I've been around my dad and his generation since I was 10 years old, and I always preferred hanging around those old gummers," Tim said. "They were a much more tight-knit group of guys than my generation. And they were completely respectful of each other, honored each other, took care of each other. My dad and his friends taught me what friendship and loyalty and respect was and what it meant to be a true friend."

And from all accounts, Bill sounded like he was everybody's friend.

"If anything came up he was my first phone call," Jill said. "He was my best friend and he was my dad and he always gave me great advice."

Buffalo Hill golf professional Marlin Hanson grew up caddying in Kalispell and remembers Redmond even back then.

"This is Bill's kind of tournament," Hanson said of the Labor Day event. "He not only enjoyed the golf, he also enjoyed the functions before and after."

There's too many good stories to tell and not enough time in a day to tell them all.

"Bill's a sweetheart," Hanson said emotionally. "He was a great guy and a good guy to have for a friend."

Pheasant hunting was another sport that Bill loved to share with friends and family, and Tim remembers him being a "professional blocker" at the end of a good run.

"Just everything he did he had a super positive outlook," Tim said. "That's why he was so successful."

Someone like that doesn't go forgotten.

"He's kind of with me everywhere," Jill said while sitting inside the restaurant at Buffalo Hill a week after her father's passing. "Especially out here."