One of the more fascinating careers in Canadian sports history has come to end in far too much anonymity, a career of professional satisfaction delayed but obtained and a measure to a man fully comfortable chasing a dream late in life after he’s taken care of the important things.

Rod Spittle hung ’em up from the Champions Tour after the Calgary stop concluded on Sunday and brought the curtain down on a unique career path I found amazing.

I don’t how many, if many at all, would know about Spittle, the Niagara Falls guy (and that makes him aces in my books no matter what) or his story but it’s one worth telling.

It’s about priorities and perseverance and taking care of the right things at the right time while always holding on to a dream —and finally realizing it.

Quite a tale.

“It’s just been a blast,” he said in a telephone chat earlier this week.

A high school and college prodigy, Spittle went to Ohio State as a teen, played alongside guys like John Cook and Joey Sindelar there but got out of school at a bit of crossroads.

He didn’t know about turning pro so he turned to his family, living a regular life for about a quarter of a century before taking his shot at 49 years old.

He turned pro, played against “the kids” as he called them on the Canadian Tour for a year before going through the Q School, Monday qualifying, hoping to earn a spot in a field grind of being a pro.

He and his wife Ann – and it’s always about “we” when you talk to Rod about his career and life arc – had a five-year plan to see if he could make it happen. He had some fun and learned a lot about himself, his life and the circumstances of trying to break through a very, very tough business.

“As I tell folks, it’s like any other small business,” he said. “You jump in and you do a little bit of everything. My job was to get better and that’s what we chased every day.

“We had started with our five-year plan … that, to me, seemed like it was long enough for me to find out if I could get my game back to the level that it needed to be to play and survive.”

Oh yeah, he could.

Around the time that five-year plan was wrapping up, Spittle popped up and won the 2010 AT&T championship. It was in some ways validation for all those weeks and years he was plodding along, it set him up for the next eight years of his life and he left the way he wanted, playing in his homeland in front of family and friends in Calgary at the Shaw Charity Classic on the weekend.

“I will tell you, we were incredibly fortunate,” he said. “Have absolutely zero regrets.”

It’s basically impossible to find anyone in the game – in Canada or on the Champions Tour – who has anything other than affinity and respect for Spittle.

“He’s the best” was how one guy put it to me this week; the “nicest guy in golf” was another description.

That he’s from Niagara Falls and we’re of relatively the same vintage makes it a bit cooler and a bit more personal for me; the fact his dad was one of the original owners of Willodell down there and he cut his teeth on the same tracks I used to scrape it around a bit is even cooler.

But knowing the story — I remember one year he was in early contention at the Senior Open in Britain and my eyes lit up in recognition — I always felt it was one of the more interesting paths an athlete can take. Of course it’s not for everyone and I don’t know how many others could have thrived and survived. But I do think there’s level of inspiration in the journey.

A helluva tale.

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Yeah, I actually took a holiday Monday morning off the other day – felt pretty good, too – and I hope you all noticed and were wondering.

But it also set us back on setting up the weekend mail so there’s some added pressure to get your questions in now.

Stop by askdoug@thestar.ca to unburden yourself of those pesky queries rattling around in your head and we’ll get ’em answered Sunday morning.

It’s quite a fun thing to do.

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For some reason, a lot of morning white noise TV this last little while has been many, many episodes of You Gotta Eat Here and, you know, it was a fun show you can learn a lot from and it’s added to the list of places I need to get to.

Sort of like a Canadian-angled Diners, Drive-ins and Dives and too bad it’s out of production.

Among Canadian food shows, it’s right at the top with Chopped Canada as ones you need to try to catch.

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You all do realize that in less than three weeks from now we’ll be out in Vancouver at Raptors training camp and that the team’s first exhibition game is three weeks from Saturday?

Yeah, I don’t know where the summer went, either.