Big day today. My wife's birthday. As birthday's go, this is one of the milestones -I'll just leave it at that. So, happy birthday to her with hopes for many, many more.
Since this is U.S. Open week, yesterday I wrote about Arnie and what he's done for the game of golf. Then I recalled something I wrote several years ago about Pebble Beach Golf Course, and my first visit there. It's longer than most of my blogs, so here's part one of the story, I called "Paradise Walk."
Something about the game of golf sets it apart from all others, at least for me. And I suspect that’s so for many, if not most, players.
Perhaps it’s where golf’s played that intrigues us. Rolling green expanses, leafy trees, lakes, ponds, streams, seashores, hills and valleys. White sand bunkers pocking landscapes reflecting sunlight. Chirping birds, chattering squirrels, scampering deer sometimes crossing the fairways. While most certainly don’t play because of scenery, there’s little doubt they’re aware of the surrounding beauty, even if only in the subconscious.
Then there’s the game itself, for most a physical test of the nth degree. Regardless of skills and expertise displayed in other athletic endeavors, golf somehow crumbles expectations, frustrating even the most gifted among us.
Odd when you think about it. No one's throwing a fastball at ninety miles an hour, challenging you to hit it. No one blocks your way or tackles you as you attempt to cross the goal line. No one leaps up, hands waving wildly to distract you as you try to put the ball in the basket.
Golf balls sit motionless on a small wooden tee, on the grass, or in the rough or sand, waiting for you, and you alone, to send them on their way. And, what do you have to do to accomplish that task? Remarkably -almost nothing.
First, simply select the appropriate club for the shot, certainly not a terribly hard athletic undertaking. In fact, most golfers know reasonably well how far golf balls will travel when hit with the various clubs in their bags. Some even have a caddy along to assist in club selection -well within the rules.
Once the proper club's been chosen, one merely swings it back, then forward again, sending the small white ball into the air. As it flies off player’s stand in place, usually posed in follow-through position, watching as the missile streaks away toward its intended target. What could be simpler than that?
Alas, for most, that’s the point where athletic skills, prowess, timing, and coordination somehow evaporate. Or, perhaps, golf clubs and balls have minds of their own. Because, when the time comes to actually address the ball, balance and finesse are somehow suddenly gone. The slow, rhythmical swing in one’s mind turns into a lunging swipe for no apparent reason. The envisioned high arcing shot to the rolling, well manicured green becomes a slicing, bouncing ground ball heading towards a pond, sand trap or forest. Sudden bursts of sound pierce the ordinarily hushed serenity as splashes, clunks or snapping branches echo.
At times, the pastoral quietude may be further disrupted by obscenities from the mildest and most well-mannered among us, as they watch their well planned shots ricochet through tree limbs like pinball's or submerge in ponds before their very eyes.
Of course, that isn’t the end of the world. Once your ball’s been found, you get the chance to do it all again. For most, the opportunity to hit the proper shot recurs quite often. In some cases …countlessly each round.
So -is that what brings golfers back? The will and determination to keep trying to attain that illusive goal…par.
In most athletic games the object is to accumulate the most points. Golfers, on the other hand, seek to amass the fewest. Whether competing against others or playing alone, par is the measure. The closer one comes to that magic number, the better they are rated as players…by others or themselves.
For some -certainly those at the professional level- how many strokes under par one shoots in a round is the test for them. They spend hour upon hour, day after day, playing the game, practicing without stop, refining the swing, fine-tuning the timing, transforming themselves into human machines endlessly repeating with perfection.
Yet, even at the professional stage, there doesn’t seem to be satisfaction. Players don’t walk away sated by better than perfect scores; accomplishing all there is, never to return. Like Chinese food enthusiasts, a few hours later -give or take- they want to go at it again. And they do…every chance they get.
For me as well, the game has always had some magical attraction, beyond my comprehension as to exactly what it is. Nonetheless, it surely exists. Just ask my wife.
When younger, participating in many sports, baseball, softball, football, swimming, diving, countless hours on basketball courts, most, if not all those endeavors came easily to me. Someone threw a ball …I hit it. Someone passed a ball …I caught it. Basketballs often flew into the hoop.
Then one fine day a friend suggested golf. “Golf?” I sneered. “Old men play golf. I play real sports. Go bother somebody else.” “No, No”, he insisted, I’m younger than you are and play all the time. C’mon, you’ll love it.”
For some inexplicable reason a few weeks later I went along one Sunday morning, with a bag of borrowed clubs, sneakers on my feet. Who knew you needed special shoes with spikes? Living in Manhattan at the time we hauled our golf bags on the subway uptown to Moshulu Park in the Bronx, taking our place with a horde of others waiting for a precious tee time.
A seeming eternity later our number was called and we plodded to the first tee. When my turn came, my friend said, “Take the club back slowly, eye on the ball, keep your head down, swing through, hit the ball.” Sounded simple enough.
Without reliving the horror of that afternoon, let’s just say I’m glad we were among strangers. To this day I’d still run the other way should I encounter anyone seeing the humiliating, pitiful excuse for a golf game I showed them. After that exasperating, demoralizing, endless afternoon, you’d think one would say, “Sorry. That game’s just not for me.”
So, how come the very next week I was back at Moshulu? And every one after that -all season long. When winters were snowless, I’d be out watching my best shots bounce twenty feet high off the frozen turf, as I shivered, teeth chattering, stuttering “N, n, next time I’ve g, g, got to r,r,remember to a,a,allow for that i, i, igloo effect.”
I played the game every chance I got until family and business responsibilities finally got in the way. Rather than playing the occasional round when time allowed, frustrating myself trying to shoot reasonable scores with inches of rust on my swing, I hung up the clubs for quite a while. But, fortunately I've now lived long enough to have some time on my hands again -and some golf clubs in them.
That's it for today folks.
Adios
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