The Game of Golf
There is a home movie of me. It is 1968. I am about four years old at the driving range at Oglebay Park in Wheeling, West Virginia. My brothers are there, too, in their goldenrod-colored shorts and tube socks. I am thrashing away at a golf ball, rivulets of sweat running down my bright, apple-red face. My dad, tall, lanky, just starting to develop the paunch that gave him his signature water tower silhouette he was famous for later in life, is maybe 49 or 50 and he is giving me pointers. The air is thick with humidity and, although the 8-millimeter movie has no sound, I can just hear the cicadas singing in the valleys below. Looking at my dad on film I wonder ... when did he take up golf? And why? Surely, he didn’t get started until after World War II. He was the only son of working-class Irish immigrants. How did he find his way to this ridiculous sport?
Jack was a rather serious man, but never took golf too seriously. A member of the Greatest Generation who lived through The Great Depression, World War II, and raising a big family through the Sixties, he realized that golf is a game, not worth getting one’s shorts in a bunch. Perhaps he found that golf is a subtle way of saying, “Life is not all wide fairways and easy greens, my friends.”
Over the years, Jack introduced all nine of his children and even my mother to golf. He never joined a golf club or a league, but each summer would lug the tribe of us down to the hot hollers of West Virginia to golf. He may have found golf was a way to “peek under the hood” of each of us to see what we were all about? He must have known that a day spent golfing with someone gives you a window into someone’s true nature. Is he honest? How patient is he with himself and others? How is her humor? How does she handle the pressure and embarrassment of people watching you give it your all and only move the bloody ball a few feet forward ... if at all? How deep is her vocabulary of swear words (mine is an abyss)?
My dad would take me golfing with him every now and then, complimenting me on my “natural swing.” (It turns out, my swing is a happy accident, benefitting from my spinal curve from scoliosis, but it was dear that he only saw the swing). He was not a verbose man, not one to have deep talks or shower one with praise. But while golfing, the whole afternoon would be filled with gentle encouragements: “That’s the right idea,” “Nice and easy, like sweeping the porch,” “Eyes on the ball, head down,” “Bend those knees, like you’re sitting on a bar stool,” (could there be a more Irish coaching tip?) ... and the inevitable, “That’s enough, pick up and let’s go to the next hole” and “Don’t keep track of your score, it will break your spirit.”
I don’t think Jack even knew his handicap (nor I mine because the whole process feels like an SAT math problem). He consistently golfed 100, which is respectable. Plain old crappy golf takes a long time and to become a good golfer with a low handicap takes a lot of practice = a very, very long time. Golf was low on Jack’s priority list, way, way behind his Big Three: Faith, Family, Work. (I am often suspect of someone with a low handicap, honestly. I mean ... Come on, aren’t you needed somewhere more important than the fairway seven days a week, sir?)
Several years ago, in an effort to better my own golf game, I was convinced to join a women’s league. With my dad’s compliments from childhood ringing in my ears, I went into this league experience feeling rather confident, wearing my snazzy new golf skort and sparkling fresh shoes. “Oh, yes, I’ve been golfing my whole life,” I told the ladies. But what I didn’t realize is that when you’re playing with serious golfers, those who actually keep score – like really keep score (whiffs, flubs and all) – well, my golf score climbed up there. It turns out I am not a good golfer at all.
During one round early on, I was paired with a crabby old bitty of a woman who seemed hell bent on, I don’t know, making me cry? The entire round, she reprimanded me for chatting, for casting my shadow in her lie, (so I guess shadow puppets are a no-no, too?), for taking too long to find my godforsaken ball – so much so that she made me tee it off again. Sure, those are the “actual rules,” but clearly, she was not worried about “breaking my spirit.” She scowled and trudged through her round as if this “game” was a crappy job and I was the new hire, ripe for hazing. The entire round I had that woman on my shoulder like a vulture, sneering at me. The more I worried about her, about my shitty whiffs and flubs, the worse I got. That death march continued for an eternity with me hacking and whacking away, like an old timey prisoner breaking stones, until my arms finally gave out. Yes, that mean ole fuddy duddy did make me cry. She probably went home to her hairless cat, feeling satisfied that she broke another golfer wannabe.
And so, since then, I’ve retreated to golfing mostly with family and a few close friends. When the stakes are low, golfing makes me feel like I’m with my dad, now that he’s gone nearly twenty-five years. It makes me appreciate nature, being outside, just like he did. I love the soft glimmer of the grass in the early morning as I M-F my drive, sending it soaring into another hole’s fairway, n’er to be seen again. I love the long, quiet shadows of late afternoon golf as a hush falls over the green while I putt ... and putt ... and putt again, urging the ball into the hole with a limbo-like dance that only sometimes works. I enjoy taking a close look at the trees surrounding the fairway ... because I spend a lot of time in their dappled shade, bouncing my ball off their strong, stoic trunks or trying to chip my way back to where I’m supposed to be.
I will occasionally golf with my husband, who came to the game only about twenty years ago and now is Sir Golf A Lot. For someone who eschews “the rules” in life in general, he is a strict rule follower in golf, which is a buzz kill, honestly. He does not appreciate my antics on the golf course. No fart noises on the backswing? What’s fun about that?
As I write this, I am unpacking from that annual family vacation where, by some clerical error, I won the annual Women’s Open. I played rounds with my daughters, my sister, my cousin and even a couple of my brothers, which was a treat. When they were adolescents, my brothers were golf hot heads, taking each swing seriously, easily frustrated to the point of throwing clubs into the woods or cracking them over a knee. Watching them swing away ... or hunt and peck for those balls sliced into the “love grass,” they are much more mellow. They have my dad’s same balding pate, sweating in the insufferable West Virginia heat. I think how happy he would be that we are all continuing this tradition of playing golf together. Much like his tradition/torture of gathering us all to do yard work together – an equally time-intensive endeavor, filled with sweat, tears and swearing – this tradition is not really about the golf at all. It’s about just spending a few hours together, taking Jack’s lessons from golf forward into life: keep a sense of humor, enjoy the scenery, don’t keep score, and, when the going gets too rough, pick up and move on. I mean, it is a game, isn’t it? It’s better than changing a poopy diaper, paying bills, snaking a drain or going to war, for chrissakes. It’s a game. A long, difficult, embarrassing, humbling, enlightening, beautiful, ridiculous game. But with the right people … worth it.