‘A true gentleman’: Golf community, family mourns loss of Ancaster man killed in fatal crash
Every weekend for the past seven years, a group of 28 guys would play a round at the Chedoke Golf Club.
They called themselves The Jacks - a tight-knit ensemble that lived for time on the links and beers at the club.
It's a pretty dedicated group," says Les Barratt. Most of us are pretty good buddies. We play every Saturday and Sunday and Tuesday morning. Then, recently, we started playing Wednesday afternoons as more of a fun thing, just a few of us."
But they're now a man short.
Ron Epping, a longtime Chedoke member and avid golfer, died Wednesday at around 9:30 a.m. after he was hit by a transport truck on Highway 403, near Highway 6 and Garter Road.
He was 65.
The Ancaster man was pronounced dead at the scene. Ontario Provincial Police have yet to release a cause for the crash.
Epping, whose identity The Spectator confirmed through family and friends, was slated for a 3 p.m. tee time at Chedoke on Wednesday.
He was rarely late," says Barratt, whose call to Epping on the first tee went unanswered.
The Jacks - about nine of them that day - went ahead and started playing. They got word of his death on the eighth hole when a worker from the pro shop drove a caddie out and met them.
We couldn't really believe it at first," says Barratt, and I'm still quite a bit shook by it. Ronny was the guy who would keep me calm if something ever bothered me. He would do anything for you."
Friends say Epping epitomized the companionship so often embedded in the sport of golf.
He was a happy-go-lucky kind of guy with a calming presence palpable to those around him. He cracked good jokes, checked in on friends. He golfed plenty - four times a week, plus annual trips to a course down in Myrtle Beach, S.C. And he was always a lock for the beer and banter that followed a round of 18 holes on a hot day.
A true gentleman," says James Cran, a friend who was at the course with Barratt when the news broke. Grown men crying and hugging each other for support is not a sight often seen, but that is the impact the loss of Ron had on us."
You couldn't ask for a better club member," adds Mark Arnett, a pro golfer and supervisor of golf services for the City of Hamilton.
I've been here 17 years and I've never heard a complaint out of the man. People are very sad around here. It's really affected the club."
But Epping, for all he gave to the game of golf, was also a devoted family man - a father of two, a loving spouse, a caring son.
After he retired from a 41-year career with Suncor in 2016, he spent much of his time as an essential caregiver to his elderly mother, says Epping's wife, Sandra.
His main focus since retirement was taking care of his mom, who turns 92 in September," said Sandra in a telephone interview, her voice cracking. He was definitely a family man."
Sandra and Epping met at a party in Oakville in the 1980s. She'll never forget the look he donned.
Big moustache, big glasses. He looked like John Denver," recalls Sandra, chuckling. We married in 1990. He was a great father and so proud of our psychologist daughter who lives in Calgary. Our son, a golf pro, learned the love of golf from Ron."
Connor, Epping's only son, considered his father a best friend. He says Epping was ever-present at home and at the dinner table, at hockey games and at golf tournaments.
I saw him every day," said Connor. My dad was everything to me. Any situation, whether it was good or bad, dad was my first phone call. No matter what. He would drop anything for me.
If I called, he was coming running."
A week before his death, Epping and Connor celebrated the latter's 26th birthday with a round of golf at Chedoke. It would mark the last game the father and son enjoyed, like so many times before.
He had a smile on his face, like always. It's not right he's gone - he had a lot of happy years left," says Connor. I don't know what I'm going to do without him."
The qualities Epping harboured - humble, gracious, positive, caring, even-keeled - are what Connor hopes to embody as his life matures. It's the only thing a son can do to honour the life of a father taken too soon, he says.
He was a special person. I can't say I have all his great attributes, but it's now my time to try and model my life around how he lived his," says Connor.
I loved him so much."
Sebastian Bron is a Hamilton-based reporter at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sbron@thespec.com