Water Torture and Golf

The impossible dream is to play golf well!

WATER TORTURE AND GOLF

 

The instincts for mortal man include survival, search for mate, and personal pleasure. The prehistoric man lived for the hunt and to defend his personal territory and possessions and connecting with a female companion to best achieve the third instinct. Nothing has changed.

My current passion is golf surprisingly slightly ahead of survival but still trailing by a measurable margin my admiration for the female gender. By the way, if my wife reads this, she is still tops the list far ahead of golf and all other females I know. Ahem!

Golf has many of the same obstacles to success as the game of pool with a few additional hazards. I practice 100 swings each day with a driver or wedge, I chip 100 whiffle balls into a trashcan and try to play at least once each week. I am improving but just when I play well and brag to my wife, Dorothy, and a few golfing friends I am struck by disaster.

When a man pursues late life athletic endeavor, after fading memories of success of the court or gridiron, somebody up there ought to cut him some slack, don't you think?

Statistics say that more than 95% of the golfers never legitimately break 100. And I know the reasons why. There are too many clubs to choose from, they come in different lengths, weights, grips, shafts, and are almost unbreakable over your knee. Even the wooden tees can be a problem. The ball sort of sits arrogantly atop the tee and it refuses to place itself in the path of the trajectory of the swing. If a tee really helps on the drive why can't you use one in the fairway? Why isn't the driver clubface as huge as a tennis racquet? The fairway is entirely too narrow for the distance from tee to the green and I suspect Steve Jobs created an I magnet that is placed in the water and every sand trap? 

Of course the ball is the primary problem. A thrown ball generally travels in a straight line but does a golf ball? Noooooo! Each one has a built-in booster rocket that often causes a sharp 90-degree turn in mid-flight. I believe the game of golf violates the laws of physics. The more force applied to the swing often results in shorter distance off the tee. Some of my drives have apparently failed to fall to earth, which would confound Galileo.

The greatest hazard, after the water and the sand traps, is the God forsaken "Green". More strokes are counted on the green than off the tee than off the tee and on the fairway combined. Two strokes can get you 350 yards down the fairway but it takes four or five more to get in the hole. Something is wrong with that picture.

So-called courtesy protocol on the green is a little bit much. No talking during another players putt interferes with the social benefits of the game. Required marking the spot of your ball if it blocks your opponents line eliminates an important tactic of the game. Stepping in his putting line really creates a rude response.  Surely the foursomes preceding us stepped all over the green. Get a life!

Making the person putt first when he is the greatest distance from the cup is somewhat embarrassing.  Just to show my utmost confidence I kneel behind the ball to see the precise break. I walk a complete circle around the green looking very perceptive. Then when my thirty-foot putt falls short by twelve feet and the ball avoids the cup and heading back toward the tee I feel the superior attitude of my partners. I’m still out. Of course I blame the poor putt on the greens keeper.

I just remembered. There is a serious design flaw by the founders of the game. The size of the cup is ridiculously small. The ball has been struck countless times from as far away as 500 yards and now must be finessed into a tiny eight-inch hole. A hockey puck goes into an eight foot net, a baseball is thrown into a strike zone two thirds the size of your body, a football is kicked between 16 foot wide goal posts, and I am expected to hit a golf ball into a miniscule cup often placed on an ant hill. This calls for NASA like precision and excuse me but I did not volunteer for JFK’s “Man on the Moon” program. Not to mention the pressure in the form of deafening silence from your partners as you line up your putt. The putter head often seems stuck to the ball so you cannot pull the trigger. Finally when your putt narrowly misses the hole do you think your sadistic partners will concede a putt of more than six inches? No!

This part I really hate. The moment of truth arrives after every completed hole. One of your partners is always a stickler for keeping score and when he asks, "What did you get," you know the other two have been quietly counting your strokes and are listening for your answer. I now know what water boarding must feel like. I think self-incrimination should be a defense if you under report your score every few holes for the sake of the game.

Fortunately there are countless reasons from which you may choose for poor performance on the golf course. Missed shots may be caused by some of these professional sounding excuses and they give your game credibility.  I didn't stay down, I hit a drop kick, I hit it fat, the wind was in my face, I under-clubbed that shot, the rough is too long, the sand trap is too hard, the greens are too slow, or too fast, I scuffed my putt, I misread the break on the green.

There are also several non-professional sounding excuses. I have bad knees from football injuries, I have a herniated disk, I may have a rotator cuff injury, these are rented clubs, these new balls have fewer dimples, the refreshment cart has disappeared, I have new cleats on my shoes, these deceptive greens always slope to the ocean . . . mountains . . . valley floor, I hope no one is home for that broken bedroom window.

         The real secret to reconciling yourself with this game is to accept that everything is opposite in the game of golf.  The ball is going to do the exact opposite of your every effort. The harder you swing the shorter the distance the ball travels. The more you aim left the more the ball will move right. The more you lift the club into the shot the more the ball is driven into the turf. Contrary to sports tradition the higher golf score does not win. The worse you play the fewer friends you have. The more often you tell your story the lower the score becomes.

 

Just keep your pool cue handy and don't put the table in a garage sale.