We begin the story of his charmed life with subtitles, because Gilles Gagnon’s English was “a little limited” when he took a train from Montreal to Michigan State in 1969.

Enter turbulence, and we’re not talking teeth busting through your bottom lip or stitches over the eye. It was hockey sans helmets. Sutures and chiclets and pass the puck. No, the rough part came on a stormy winter night in 1973 when the Port Huron Wings’ team bus slid off I-80 and crashed down an embankment outside of Des Moines.

Now, if you’re thinking a language barrier and escaping a bus crash through a broken window aren’t launch pads to a charmed life, well, you haven’t met Gilles Gagnon.

And David Fay, for one, is pretty sure there isn’t anyone of note in golf who hasn’t had the privilege to meet Gilles Gagnon. Emphasis on “privilege,” because the man who for more than 40 years has been the face of one of the iconic golf resorts in the world, Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic, has an uncanny presence.

“Gilles is truly one of the great goodwill ambassadors in the game of golf,” said Fay, the former Executive Director of the U.S. Golf Association. “He is certainly in the top echelon.”

Hollywood would speed up the story and tighten the script, maybe introduce scenes where Gagnon got hired over Bill Coore as Director of Golf at Casa de Campo after winning over the legendary architect Pete Dye on their first meeting.

Only books are better than movies and real life more flavorful than edited scripts. Gagnon’s road did intersect with Coore and Dye, just not in a Hollywood fashion. It was better. “Definitely, a wild ride,” he laughed. “There were a lot of risks and at times I was riding by the seat of my pants. But a lot of times my decisions worked out.”

For instance, seeing the horrific bus crash as “a sign to move on,” Gagnon walked away from his playing career and accepted a job as an assistant hockey coach at Colgate. No glamour, but doors opened when the 5-or-6-handicapper was also named Colgate golf coach and head pro at Seven Oaks, the college course.

“People would come up to me and say, ‘How can you be a golf pro, you can’t beat anyone on my team,” laughed Gagnon.

But if he could skate his 5-foot-5-inch, 145-pound frame around larger and more powerful bodies to score 67 goals and 154 points in 97 career games for MSU, Gagnon could polish his golf. He also put a shine on diplomacy and landed the 1977 NCAA Golf Championships for Seven Oaks.

Next, he re-assessed his future. An intriguing new resort in the Caribbean caught his fancy, but folks at Casa de Campo had another guy lined up for the Director of Golf position.

Except no one told Coore.

“Pete (Dye) sent me down, but I got there and had nothing to do,” said Coore, then one of many construction workers on the Dye team, but today joined at the hip with Ben Crenshaw to form the world’s most acclaimed design team. When Coore uncovered Dye’s motive – Coore was sent to become the Director of Golf – he packed his bags.

“The owners wanted to kill me,” said Coore, who can laugh now. “Heck, they wanted to kill Pete. But I didn’t ‘quit’ the job, because I never started.”

The job search circled back to Gagnon.

“He never could pronounce my name, so he just called me ‘Pro.’ He says, ‘Pro, what do you know about golf course maintenance?’ and I told him some things I did around Seven Oaks, which didn’t impress him, and that I hosted the NCAA Championships. He said, ‘So basically, you don’t know %$&#.’ ”

Vintage Pete Dye. And vintage Gilles Gagnon, because from that bumpy start, a friendship blossomed. Gagnon was best friends with Pete and Alice; Pete and Alice thought so much of Gagnon and Casa de Campo that for years they lived off the seventh hole.

“They were best buddies, Pete and Alice,” said Gagnon. “But she wasn’t afraid to chew him out.”

Days after Alice Dye died at 91 on Feb. 1, 2019, a UPS box arrived at Gagnon’s door. “From Alice, a bunch of old photos from the early days of Teeth of the Dog with a note saying, ‘You deserve to have these.’ ”

Months later, the decision was made to move Pete Dye, then 94 and living with severe dementia, back to Casa de Campo. That is where he lived the last few months of his life and not far from his house is where his remains are buried.

That from a remote corner of an island in a big, wide world, the onetime collegiate hockey player from Montreal has generated such a rewarding life is testament to his magnetic personality and his great feel for the game.

Gagnon was a consultant on the ultimate “If you build it, they will come” endeavor, Dick Youngscap’s vision for Sand Hills GC in Mullen, Neb., that Coore and Crenshaw turned into a masterpiece. He considered an offer to work half the year at Sand Hill and half the year at Casa de Campo before choosing his island home fulltime. His daughter, Dominique, did the opposite, however; she married Cameron Werner, Sand Hills’ Director of Golf, and lives year-round in Mullen.

It’s yet another slice of sweet symmetry to Gagnon’s life and no one can appreciate it more than Coore, whose decision not to become director of golf set in motion a pair of partnerships that have benefited golf greatly – Coore and Crenshaw, Gagnon and Casa de Camp.

“Things occurred how they should have occurred,” said Coore.