Holey Hell
By Sean McVeigh
Of course we start early. Golf always starts so early. And for some reason, I’ve always had a few drinks the night before. Whose fault is that? Well, the golf gods’ fault, of course.
Golf is not a game; it’s an event. A full-day event, at that. While it always starts early, you never finish early. That’s the golf paradox. I’ve learned that it’s best to just chalk that day up as a loss. I will not be doing anything productive before, during or after my 18 holes on the course.
This week I received a call from the most avid golfer I know: my dad. He doesn’t just walk the walk, though, he’s the real deal out there on the course. Believe it or not, these are tough calls for me.
On the one hand, I love spending a few hours on the golf course with my dad. On the other hand, the much more dominant hand, I have recently concluded that I don’t really like golf. I hope that changes in the future but, right now, it’s just the truth.
I put all that aside and agree to play. Woe is me. I get to play golf on a beautiful August morning. There’s no way I can keep complaining about this, right? Wrong!
As usual, I am expecting to play great. Why shouldn’t I? For starters, I’ve come dressed for the part. Dressing like you belong on a golf course is half the battle and if you saw me out there, you wouldn’t be able to help but judge a book by its cover and think I knew what I was doing. Unfortunately, you’d be dead wrong. I am awful.
There’s one main thing that I’ve got going against me … I don’t play. Why would I expect to be any good if I haven’t swung a club in 10 months? And it’s not like the last time I was swinging the club I was doing anything special. I think it is mostly just delusion. And I suffer from it greatly.
As any sane person would expect, I always end up playing exactly to my abilities — absolute trash. The problem is I then become frustrated. And when you get frustrated on the second hole with 16 more to go, it doesn’t go well … for anyone.
This time, as we head out to the first tee, I make a pledge to myself: today will be different.
The thing about my dad is he is not just a golfer … he is a really good golfer. That can be intimidating. He may be the most patient man I know, especially on the golf course, and especially with me on the golf course, but sometimes that only makes it all worse. I will be down on myself after some truly awful playing, and he’ll give me a little pick-me-up speech. After that, he’ll walk up to the tee, whack the crap out of the ball and end up sticking it right in the middle of the green. I will take a deep breath, take in all his sage advice … and slice the ball right into the water.
Inevitably, no matter who I am playing with, I always encounter a situation where someone tries to tell me exactly where to hit the ball. “Looks like you’ve got a nice downhill putt with some left to right break. I’d put it right here, six inches past the cup, and you’ll be golden.” Do people really have that kind of control? I most certainly do not. Instead, I take a page out of John Daly’s book and just “grip it and rip it.” Where it’s headed, no one knows. All we can do is hope that it’s going straight. (Spoiler alert: it’s not.)
Golf should only be 12 holes. I think I want that written on my gravestone. Well, no, please don’t. I can’t deal with golf following me into the grave. I wonder if the golf-o-philes, being rewarded in heaven, ever get paired up to play with the golf-o-phobic souls being tormented from hell in the afterlife. I can only imagine that a tee time is hard to get at St. Peter’s Country Club and the starter there is not sending out twosomes regardless of how awkward it might get.
No matter how bad I play — and, oh boy, is it ugly — when that last putt falls on the 18th hole, there is no denying that it was a good time. I may have spent more time in the sand and water than I do when I go to the beach, but it was also chock full of laughs the entire time. And when it’s finally (FINALLY!!) over, it’s time to make the trip to the 19th hole. I don’t care what anyone else says, the worse you play, the better the drinks taste after.
I was right there this time. A few missed putts mixed with some bad lies did me in. When I play again in a few months, I think I will finally have this whole game down pat.
