Why I golf…
Golf is a beautiful thing. Sometimes. Here is why I play.
Hole number one on any course is a lovely adventure. By the time I have overcome my body stiffness, I have managed to come in contact with all of God’s special creation on that hole. The thickest grass. The tallest weeds. The largest tree. I have become intimate with the final 50 yards of the approach to the green and knowledgeable of every part of the green’s terrain, having crisscrossed it several times. But that’s not the best part. It’s looking straight in the eyes of my playing companions and saying, “Give me a bogey on that one.”
Gives new meaning to the phrase “bad lie”, doesn’t it?
Normally I push the ball right on the first hole, so it is time to compensate with a severe beaver hook to the left. Generally that is called a duck hook, but nothing that bad should be said about a duck. From behind the tree, and there always is a tree, I must think wisely about club selection. Take a 9 iron and go over the tree. Or take a 3 iron and hit a low screamer. Or take a 5 iron and play a hook around the tree.
That’s called over thinking. I know that, regardless of the choice, regardless of the aim, my shot will hit the tree dead center and come straight back at me. Ten minutes later, I pick up my gimme putt from 15 feet and chalk up another bogey.
Time for a par three. And so far, I haven’t hit a decent shot. It’s a short par three and for some reason I feel confident. My partners hit their pitching wedges to a variety of locations, none of them on the green, primarily because everyone is laughing and coughing in the middle of their back swing. My thought pattern is this: select a club two up from everyone else (like normal) and just take a nice easy swing through the laughter.
And I hit a pretty shot. The flight pattern was awesome to watch. Take that; let’s see you laugh now. Okay, on my second shot from 20 yards behind the green, I scuff it. I won’t make that mistake again, I say, as the ball skitters up toward the hole and beyond, just catching the downward slope so it comes to a stop against the frog hair. Needless to say, I carded another bogey.
By this time, you might think I should be seeing a golf psychologist, but, no, the human spirit continues to prevail as I diagram visually each of my shots on the par five that stretches out endlessly before me. Perhaps I should have been watching the guy on the teebox a little more, as he lost his balance and eventually his club, which implanted itself in the middle of my forehead.
My world was spinning as I hit the ground. The monkey bump and cuts should have knocked some sense into me. But no, I still had some old friends to visit: rocks, sandtraps, and water.
I had not yet unveiled my best clubs: the hand wedge and the foot wedge. And so I pressed on to the ninth hole, the final one this day.
You see, no matter how bad a golfer plays, there is always the one memorable shot. A thirty foot putt. A seeing eye approach with an iron. A sweet sounding straight drive. If you are playing poorly, you may have to wait until the ninth hole, but it will come. From the time you pick up a club, it is your destiny to hit that shot so you will once again be tempted to try this evil sport.
As for my first round of the year, despite the injury (the only hole in one on the day), it wasn’t bad. One par and eight “bogeys”. I did it my way!