It was a two-way street, but Billy Harmon appeared to be navigating it as a dead end.

“I was living my own literal torture. I was slowly dying inside,” he said. Crazy thing is, he didn’t seem to have the strength to care, either. No matter that he had a beautiful wife, Robin, a newborn son, and was successful in the family business (golf instruction) at a premier club (Newport CC).

“There was self-loathing, self-hatred and for those 10 weeks (after his son’s birth) I was never lower. As a husband, as a father, I was very, very disappointed in myself.”

Excruciating, how alcohol can deliver relentless pain and leave you spinning out of control. Brilliant, the human spirit that can show up when you least expect it.

“Do you want to go to an AA meeting and stop drinking?” the man and woman asked him.

Harmon stared at the two Newport CC board members, figuring they had come to dismiss him for what he conceded was a fireable offense. Instead, “they thought more about me than I thought of me.”

He would go to the meeting and promised not to drink again. Nearly 32 years later, Billy Harmon has kept that promise, his sobriety being the foundation to the beautiful life he has lived.

“I’m the luckiest guy in the world,” said Harmon, who at 74 will return to Newport CC next week to caddie for his longtime friend Jay Haas in the U.S. Senior Open (June 27-30).

Loyal and conscientious, Harmon will be at Newport CC a few days ahead of Haas and first thing he’ll do is have dinner with that woman board member who in 1992 helped orchestrate the intervention.

“They saved my life,” Harmon said. “There’s no way I can ever repay them.”

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The youngest of four boys born into Golf Royalty, Billy Harmon has always believed as his brothers – Butch, Craig, and Dick, who died at 58 in 2006 – believed, that they had an obligation to carry on what their father, Claude Harmon, started.

“He mentored so many (club pros). It was very real, this ‘Harmon Winged Foot way.’ My dad was a giver and we (the sons) grew up to be givers.”

Golf professionals, all of them, the sons became successful club pros and instructors, though Billy, likely because he had a little renegade in him, spent a lot of his younger years as a caddie. Having finally settled to enter the club pro world, Billy Harmon was hired at Newport CC in 1991. A year later, he figures he should have been dismissed, but for the grace and warm hearts of those board members.

Committed to sobriety, Harmon worked at Newport CC until 1996 (yes, he was there in ’95 when Tiger Woods won the second of his three straight U.S. Amateurs) and will choke back emotions when he returns to work for Haas.

“I owe everything to Newport,” he said.

There is a flip side to that, though, and it’s a beautiful reality that a lot of people owe thanks to Billy Harmon’s sense of gratitude. Forever thankful to the actions of those two board members who gave him a chance to turn his life around, Billy Harmon has dedicated much of the last 32 years to providing help to those who are in need.

Robin and Billy Harmon created the Harmon Recovery Foundation years ago and nearly $3m has been donated to help people with their alcohol and drug battles. Located in LaQuinta, Calif., not far from the Billy Harmon Performance Center at Toscano CC, “I think that the Foundation gave me great, great meaning to my life,” he said. “It’s a purpose I never had.”

Often, it would be said of Claude Harmon that he mentored and developed so many quality assistants and teaching professionals that it was a proverbial tree. “An unusually large tree,” said Billy Harmon, “and you could call it the tree of giving” because what made it grow was a sense of sharing.

“I’m just adding another branch to the tree,” said Billy Harmon. “Just trying to water the tree.”

Proud of what the Harmon Recovery Foundation has done, Billy Harmon is inspired to do more. He and Robin – the both of them are cancer survivors, by the way – are avid hikers and on a recent climb Billy heard a voice. “It was my brother Dick, asking me, ‘What are you waiting for, pal?’ ”

The idea came to him. He could do more by traveling the country to do a series of two-day clinics for juniors. There was a recent stop in San Antonio and another in Denver. Calgary, Alb.; Greenville, S.C.; Seattle; Twin Falls, Idaho, are some of the stops upcoming on Billy Harmon's schedule.

Billy Harmon and his wife Robin lived in Newport, R.I., for six years early in the 1990s and still have a lot of friends living there.

“I consider it my last chapter,” he said. “I’m living the rest of my life paying respects to the people who helped me. I’m in good health and I want to help make an impact on young people’s lives.”

“Footprints” is the name Billy Harmon has attached to his endeavor and there is a beautiful story behind that.

It was an evening to toast Jackie Burke Jr. on the occasion of his 90thbirthday and Harmon was seated next to Burke’s daughter. As they talked about their legendary fathers, the discussion rolled around to things people might not know about Jackie Burke Jr. and Claude Harmon.

The daughter revealed that her father, unbeknownst to her, attended church every day at 11:45. She told him there is no Mass at 11:45 and the old sage agreed, but said you don’t need a Mass to sit alone, to think, and talk to God.

In fact, Burke told his daughter that he had heard this at church that very day: “That we only have two feet but it doesn’t mean you can’t leave more than two footprints.”

Billy Harmon has never forgotten those words of wisdom and so he calls this tour of junior golf clinics the Harmon Recovery Footprint.

"People want to thank me for what I'm doing, but I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. Too many people in this world want a pat on the back for not robbing a bank,” said Harmon, conjuring up an iconic Bobby Jones quote.

“I’ve been exposed to a lot of people my whole life that have done so much for me. That’s what this last chapter is about. It’s my way to thank them.”

Of course, nowhere does a sense of appreciation hit him quite like it will at Newport CC. “There will be a lot of emotions, a lot of sentiments,” said Harmon.

“You could say it’s the scene of the crime . . . and the scene of my new life.”