Vince Gill Reflects on Who Was Missing From His Touching Memorial Statue: “Don’t Get Near the Love They Deserve”

Vince Gill is many things: a prolific, award-winning musician, a husband, a dad, the “nicest guy in Nashville,” and, in whatever free time he may have, an avid golfer. The country star’s lifelong interest in the sport led to his philanthropic involvement in establishing Golf House Tennessee, an antebellum house in a Nashville suburb that houses the Tennessee Golf Foundation. To raise funds for the foundation, Gill began hosting the Vinny Pro-Celebrity Golf Invitational, or the Vinny, in 1993.

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Six years later, the Tennessee Golf Foundation erected a statue in honor of Gill and his father, Judge J. Stanley Gill. The bronze statue depicts his father in a baseball cap, polo, and slacks, leaning on a golf club with one hand. His other hand is on his son’s shoulder, a young Vince Gill, who just finished a golf swing, leg twisted, smiling up at a faraway ball. When the foundation first erected the memorial in August 1998, Gill said, “The statue is an honor of every parent and child who spend time together on a golf course,” per The Tennesseean.

Years later, Gill found himself in front of that statue with interviewer Dan Rather. The usual greenery surrounding the likeness of himself and his father was gone, leaving only a patchy knoll of brown grass, half-covered in snow. Gill reflected on the man his father was and, in doing so, on an important person missing from the touching tribute.

Vince Gill Reflects on His Mom and Dad at His Memorial Statue

The statue of Vince Gill playing golf with his father as a child is undoubtedly a heartwarming way to memorialize the man who inspired Gill’s love of golf. It was also a way for everyone who knew Gill’s father, Judge J. Stanley Gill, to remember him. “Everybody liked my dad,” Gill told Dan Rather years later. “He was a fun guy. Had a million dirty jokes. He was the life of the party, and he was a blast.”

But Gill added, “I kind of wish my mom was up there, too,” looking up at the statue. “She’s the one that really was—as Amy [Grant, my wife] says—she did all the grunt work. She took me, picked me up, hauled me, got me there.”

While accepting the PGA Distinguished Service Award in 2003, Gill said, “In the 18 years I spent at home, I didn’t get to play with my old man so much. But my mom was always there. I can remember playing often 54 holes a day. And as the sun went down, I could see the headlights coming down the road. I knew it was my momma’s car coming to get me” (via BMI).

“I think mommas don’t get near the love they deserve,” Gill told Rather.

Gill has often memorialized his parents in his music, including “The Key to Life”, “A Few Chords on the Banjo”, and “A Letter to My Mama”. In so many ways, the future country star’s parents shaped his path into what it is today, both in how he makes a living on stage and how he truly lives on the green.

Photo by Stephen Dunn /Allsport