Column: Earl Capps leaves his fingerprints on Galatia Presbyterian Church, and those miniature putting holes

Longtime members of Galatia Presbyterian Church can close their eyes, and they see Earl Capps in their mind’s eye.

They can see the shrubs and bushes, where he wanted to beautify the grounds around the old, red-brick church, circa 1825, not so far away from Gillis Hill Road in west Fayetteville. They see him brewing coffee on a Sunday morning before Sunday school and before the church bell would ring for the preachers to take their places behind the pulpit. 

“I can remember being in the office and seeing Earl out watering the flowers without fanfare,” the Rev. Brett Johnson would say on this cold Jan. 11 Saturday, where the sanctuary was filled from front to back in celebration of Earl Capps’ life. 

Earl Capps was quiet and soft-spoken.

He was unpretentious. 

He was the longtime Sunday school superintendent, a church deacon and elder. 

“He did solos in the choir,” the preacher said. 

He lifted up others when they were struggling in their lives. 

“I found him to be an encourager,” Johnson said. “He always tried to build you up. He tried to live a life that honored the Holy Spirit. There was not a mean bone in his body.”

Earl Capps was a born-again Christian soldier, and he dedicated his life to marching in the footsteps of his Lord and savior. 

“His daughter told me, ‘When Daddy rededicated his life to Christ, he did it with perfection,’” Johnson said. “‘Daddy loved the Lord, and he loved Galatia church. He kept the flowers watered and planted roses in front of the church.’”

He liked an Easter Sunday, a Christmas cantata, a communion Sunday and a homecoming on the church grounds or in the fellowship hall, and sharing it all with his late wife, his sons and daughters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. 

Born in Rockfish, Earl Capps was a lifelong church member, just like his father, Milton Earl Capps, and his mother, Frances Braddy Capps, who played piano for Wednesday night church gatherings. 

Windmills along the way

“He was a lifelong church member,” Jimmy Gillis later would remember Earl Capps, who in 1956 became construction supervisor for the late Don Clayton, who in 1954 founded Putt-Putt Golf Courses of America.

Capps built the miniature golf courses – more than 350 – nationwide. 

“He used to drive from Ohio on Saturdays, see his mama, and be in church on Sundays,” Gillis said. “He would come back from Ohio, Illinois, Indiana or wherever he was building one. He drove a black Chevrolet pickup that had 330,000 miles on it. He was a dedicated churchman and son. He was dedicated to spending time with his family and church, and then go back.”

Many of the facilities remain today in the franchise system.

“I asked him once what was his favorite putting hole to build,” said Judy Gillis Dibacco, whose late father, Malcolm Gillis, and late uncle, J. McN. Gillis, owned the Putt-Putt Golf Course on Raeford Road in the early 1960s, “and he said the windmill hole.”

Capps was the construction foreman in 1956 for his first Putt-Putt Golf Course in Charlotte and later what would become the 90-hole layout in Philadelphia in 1970, the Professional Putters Association National Championship layout in Columbus, Ohio, and the first themed courses built in 1980 in Martinez, Georgia. He later supervised the construction of the Putt-Putt Golf Course on Owen Drive in Fayetteville. 

“His unwavering dedication to quality and consistency at every location earned him the title of ‘master builder,’” says Joe Aboid, commissioner of the PPA headquartered in Lynchburg, Virginia. “Over the years, Earl was involved in building hundreds of locations across the United States.”

Capps was inducted in 1991 into the Putt-Putt Golf Courses of America and PPA Hall of Fame in what Aboid describes as “a testament to his impact on the sport.”

Capps retired from building miniature golf courses in 1998 but took up a second career in his hometown of Raeford working at Crumpler Funeral Home until 2016.

But Galatia Presbyterian Church always was near and dear to his heart.

Capps took pride in the rose bushes he planted on the church grounds and watching them bloom in the spring. He took pride in building the 6 1/2-foot brick formation for the old church bell damaged when the church burned on Dec. 10, 1959. 

“The bell that came out of the old church,” Jimmy Gillis says. “It’s right by the cemetery, and it was donated by Earl Capps. He rebuilt it about 12 or 15 years ago. He was a loyal attender of the church. He was quiet and he was contented with life. Just a solid-of-the-earth fellow who didn’t make a lot of noise but kept doing something” for the church.

Epilogue

Robert Earl Capps died Jan. 7. 

He was 88. 

“He used his hands to build incredible and amazing things,” the Rev. Johnson said. “He was a good and decent man. He had much to look back on and be proud, yet Earl remained humble. Earl was kind and loving. He was kind and tenderhearted. None of us were ready for Earl to go, but Earl was. He is free of the struggles brought on by age and illness. A man loved by his family, with memories of a life well lived. The life of Robert Earl Capp will continue to live on. Let us be strengthened by Earl’s witness, there is life eternal for all those who believe.”

So, off you go, good steward of a man in your faith and for giving generations of kids and teenagers playgrounds to navigate the windmills and to stand as tall as the mountains you built for them to climb in pursuit of their dreams.

Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.

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