Lanto Griffin got into golf thanks to his father. It all started with a surprise gift on just another Christmas: a 5-iron, 7-iron, 9-iron, putter, and a 3-wood. Griffin was eight. It was a surprise gift because Michael, his dad, wasn’t much into golf. Nor did any of his relatives, even though the local muni was less than a mile away.

Michael, a health-food store owner, also used to coach local basketball and soccer teams. But about golf, neither he nor any of his relatives were ever serious about the game. As Lanto Griffin recalled in a Golf Digest interview, life was fun for him. His parents, self-proclaimed hippies, moved around.

Griffin was born in Mount Shasta, California, but grew up in Blacksburg, Virginia, since he was five. “We didn’t have much money, but we had a great life,” said the one-time PGA Tour winner.

Then it all came crashing down.

Griffin was 12. His father was sick for some time. The kids – Griffin has a sister and three brothers – thought it was just cold. It was not. It was a brain tumor. Griffin still remembers the day when his best friend’s mom drove him to the hospital. That look in her eyes told more than what she could speak. Michael Griffin had stage IV cancer. Doctors had just operated to remove the brain tumor. 

Michael came back home and promised he would just be fine. Lanto Griffin believed him. “I thought, ‘He’s Dad; he’s a superhero. He’ll be fine.’” Except he wasn’t going to. Slowly, it started getting worse. On one of those better days, Michael took his son to Steve Prater, the head pro at Blacksburg Golf Club, for a lesson. He told Griffin that the cancer was gone. He has beaten it.

Griffin believed him.

Prater, on the other hand, saw the promising young man and took him under his wings. But Michael’s time was up. Ten months after the surgery, Michael Griffin passed away. “I remember when Lanto’s dad died. I knew he was sick, but it was still kind of a shock to me. Lanto was in the bag room when I saw him. … He was sad, crying. We hugged for a while. Ever since we’ve had a bond,” Prater told PGA Tour.com in an interview. Prater actually became a father figure to Griffin. One who guided him to the treacherous road of the PGA Tour.

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Lanto Griffin found a guardian in his coach

The day Michael died, Griffin received a call from Prater. His coach told him that he had received an honorary membership at the Blacksburg Golf Club. “Which, to me, at that time, felt like Augusta National.” Eventually, Lanto Griffin became a part of the Prater family, developing a close bond with Prater’s son.

“There are a thousand different ways my life could have gone after my dad passed, but it was the people around me—and their love and selflessness—that allowed me to develop into the player I am today,” Griffin wrote in an article for The Hill. Truly, without Prater, Lanto Griffin would have been lost.

One day, Virginia Commonwealth University came looking for golfers at Blacksburg. Prater knew who was the best fit. Griffin played four years for the Rams. Then he went to KFT, earned his PGA Tour card, lost it, and earned it back again. He is now a one-time PGA Tour winner with eyes set on piling up more. “I bet he’d be pretty proud,” said the 36-year-old after netting his first title in 2019. True. Michael Griffin would’ve been proud to see how his son held himself together after his passing.