The Remarkable Story Of Rodney Lavard

Rough to fairway

The now 6-foot-4-inch Lavard took to the game of golf in a big way. “I gave Rodney some lessons and Tommy Coleman, one of our members, helped Rodney with his short game,” Boyce said. “After work, Rodney would play golf until dark. Rodney became very good, very fast.”

One day, Craig Owen, a vacationer from Louisiana, arrived at Provo looking for someone to join him in a round of golf. Lavard said he would be happy to accompany Owen. “Craig asked if I was interested in playing a match for money,” Lavard said. “I don’t know how to say this politely, but I handed him his ass.”

Owen suggested that with Lavard’s talent, he should consider playing college golf. Lavard replied that he would love to, but money was a problem. Owen countered that there was scholarship money out there and he had a friend who was a college golf coach. This conversation led to the eventual Federal Express package and concern over completing the appropriate paperwork.

Most college students have parents to assist with the volumes of paperwork associated with the financial aid process. Lavard didn’t have any parents, and there was the complicated matter of his legal residency.

Hugh G. O’Neill, an attorney who belonged to Provo Golf Club, took it upon himself to assist Lavard with the paperwork necessary to clear his citizenship and make his application as proper as it could be. O’Neill’s assistance included a polite tug on the arm of John Kelly, Providenciales’ governor and golf enthusiast.

In the meantime, Lavard received a phone call from the Southern University golf coach. “When are you coming up so I can watch you play?” Coach Clifton Johnson inquired. “When are you going to send me an air ticket?” the always straightforward Lavard replied.

Lavard then flew to Baton Rouge to play golf for Coach Johnson. “My knees were absolutely shaking when I stepped up to the first tee,” Lavard said. “Luckily, it was so hot that day, my mind started to focus on the heat, rather than being nervous. I ended up playing pretty well.”

News of Lavard’s scholarship and admission to Southern University soon became the talk of Providenciales. The beginning of Lavard’s college experience was quickly approaching; however, what had yet to be addressed was how Lavard would live while attending school.

An island shines on a native son

Dave Douglas, a native of Sarnia, Ontario, took over the reigns as Director of Golf at Provo Golf Club when Boyce moved back to Canada. Douglas recalls the members of the golf club uniting to help Lavard get settled financially before his freshman year in college.

“We organized a fundraising event called the Flamingo Ball,” Douglas said. “The ball was held at the Ocean Club resort here in Providenciales. People purchased tickets for a night that would include dinner, followed by music and dancing at the golf course. Rodney danced with everyone that night. I believe we raised $2,000 for his college fund,” he continued.

As fate would have it, once Lavard arrived in Baton Rouge, his life hurdles were far from over. There was a problem with his scholarship and tuition. Suddenly, it looked as though school might not be a reality. “I called the only people I knew living in the United States,” Lavard said.

Those people were his United States sponsors, Framingham, Mass., residents Irv and Dot Lyles. The Lyles began vacationing in Turks and Caicos in the late 1980s and had befriended Lavard. The Lyles resort talk was more than just talk. “The Lyles told me if I ever needed anything, to call them,” Lavard said.

The Lyles wrote a check for $5,000 to keep Lavard afloat until his scholarship paperwork was rectified. From that point on, Lavard and the Lyles never looked back. The always even-keeled Lavard chokes back emotion when discussing the Lyles. “I consider those two people to be my parents,” he said. “I love Irv and Dot.”

During the summer prior to Lavard’s sophomore year, he lived with the Lyles and worked at the Sandy Burr Country Club outside of Framingham. One morning, while he was driving to work, Lavard’s car was hit head-on by a drunk driver speeding down the wrong side of the highway. He remembers staggering from the car while covered in blood. The last thing he recalls is knocking on the door of the nearest neighbor before passing out. Lavard would need 188 stitches to close his wounds before fully recovering.

During his junior and senior years, Lavard was captain of the Southern University golf team. He graduated cum laude with a Bachelor in Computer Science in May of 2001. Following the unlikeliest of paths that began in Haiti, Lavard had moved onward to Turks and Caicos and then upward to Baton Rouge. During that time, he was just getting warmed up.

Make it anywhere

With his college success behind him, Lavard’s career aspirations turned big—as in New York City big. Lavard interviewed and was offered employment at Ziff Brothers Investments, a midtown Manhattan private investment firm. Lavard began work in August of 2001 as a computer programmer.

One month after beginning work at Ziff Brothers, Lavard remembers hearing a coworker make the strangest comment. “Someone said they heard that a plane was witnessed flying over Lexington Avenue in downtown New York,” Lavard said. “I went over to my 45th floor office window and looked out to see the second plane fly into the twin towers.”

From that point, Lavard remembers walking. He marched down 45 flights of stairs. He continued walking into the city streets of New York. “Normally, with all the people, you have to look straight ahead when you walk on a Manhattan sidewalk,” Lavard said. “On this day, everyone was looking straight up. It was like people were searching for another plane to fall from the sky.”

True to the legacy he learned from his father, Lavard came back to work the next day and has been working every day since. He is currently employed at Cerberus Capital Management as a software engineer/ project manager.

Life has been good to Lavard since he made the Big Apple his home. About eight years ago, he met Cassandre Jean, a woman whose grandparents’ roots also trace back to Haiti. He and Cassandre have been together ever since.

A Provo proposal

In 2007, Lavard brought Cassandre and her mother back with him to Providenciales. Cassandre was under the impression that Lavard simply wanted company while playing in the Turks and Caicos Amateur Championship. (Lavard has competed as one of the island’s top players dating back to 1996.) But on this particular occasion, he had more than golf on his mind.

“Rodney wasn’t acting like himself for the first several days that we were in Provo,” Cassandre said. “I thought it was because he was so focused on golf.” On the day before the Caribbean Amateur Competition, Lavard revealed why he seemed so preoccupied. He asked Cassandre to marry him at Provo Golf Club, the place where so much good had occurred in his life.

He and Cassandre were married in October of 2009. Their marriage took place on Grace Bay Beach on the boardwalk of the Gansevoort Hotel. In attendance were people from Lavard’s past and present life. These attendees were there to share in the wedded bliss of a man who managed to wring every ounce of good from what life had to offer.

Resort talk…it can happen

As the song says, regrets, Lavard’s had a few. But then, regrets or hard feelings were never something Lavard had much time for. When asked what he has learned from his incredible journey, he replied, “I don’t dwell too much on the past. I believe that whatever situation I’m put in, I can come out ahead. I have a lot to look forward to in my life.”

No matter what Lavard says, there is one thing you can be sure of—it’s the truth. Lavard was never one for resort talk. But then again, no one knows better than Lavard that some resort talk can change a life forever.