A Good Walk Ruined

Golf has been described as a good walk ruined.

Golf has three basic difficulties; 1) hitting the ball 2) finding the ball after you've hit it and 3) walking while looking for a lost ball.

All three problems are inter-related.

Problem 1 is hitting tha ball. The ball is just sitting there often on a tee but more often on the ground. It's not moving like a baseball or a hockey puck. It's just sitting there waiting to be clobbered. So we stride up to the ball and take whatever swing we customarilly take when we are preparing to clobber something that is just sitting there asking to be clobbered when we have some kind of club/stick/bat in our hands. We take an exaggerated backswing and come through with all of our might, force and velocity, only to discover that the ball remains on the tee, untouched, unbloodied, unbowed, unclobbered.

We try this technique a few times until someone clues us in that golf is not baseball or hockey or hitting somebody with a stick. Golf is a whole different ballgame. The essential thing about the golf swing is to look at the ball all the way through the swing. If we take our eye off the ball during the backswing, in all likelihood we're going to miss the ball entirely.

We make our correction as best we can. We swing again. We watch the ball carefully. We extend our arms and just as the club is about to make contact with the ball, we raise our eyes so we can see how far we've hit the goddamned thing.

We usually don't have to look far.

If we hit it at all, it probably dribbled a few feet from the tee.

In one sense this is good because we will have no trouble finding the ball and the walk to the ball will be very short although it will be filled with muttering.

Eventually we learn that we must keep our head down all the way through the swing and not look up for the ball until we are following through with our swing which automatically will lift our head at the right time to see the ball in flight already 30 yards down the fairway when we look up and we can watch where it lands thus cutting down on difficulty number 2...finding the ball.

Of course even this method often fails. At least a hundred times in my "career". I've kept my head down through the follow,  lifted my head up and couldn't locate the ball in the air. I check to make sure that it's not on the tee. It's gone but I don't have any idea where it went. This sequence sets up an unpleasant whistling and muttering walk as I search for the ball that in every case has somehow disappeared into thin air, never to be seen again.

I'm not a person who enjoys looking for things. I freak out everytime I lock myself out of the apartment because I can't find the keys or I'm in the apartment looking for my keys so I can get out of the apartment etc. I hate looking for things although they always turn up, if they turn up at all, in the very last place that I look.

One way of eliminating this problem is to make sure to hit a shitty shot with every swing. The ball will always remain in sight either on the tee or a less than 100 feet from where it was struck. It will add a couple of pathetic hours to the time of your round and will infuriate all of thise who are behind you.

If you don't use the shitty shot theory, and you actually hit the ball, if the ball hooks or fades while in the air...it has a tendency to land in water or woods. Does anybody like to go into the woods in search of something that will in all likelihood never be found? Check out Blair Witch Project.

To save time, we go to the approximate place where the ball went into the woods and hit another ball from that spot. Yeah, we didn't waste a lot of time searching for the ball but we did waste whatever the cost of the ball was which leads to more muttering as we walk to find the location of where THAT shot from the edge of the woods went. Many times it is in the water or the swamp across from the woods. Don't even bother looking in the swamp. God only knows what's in there.

Finally, we get to the green which relieves us ot 2 problems. We don't have to swing at the ball when we're on the green, we merely have to tap it. An inability to make contact with the ball while tapping indicates either a serious problem with eye hand co-ordination or WAAAYYYY too many beers before or during the walk itself. I've never been THAT wrecked nor have I ever lost a ball on the green.

All of these difficulties take place during a "walk" through some of the most beautiful settings in the world. Several times, I've walked through a golf course without my clubs or my bag. I take in all the breathtaking scenery, the colors, the textures, the sunshine, the shimmering water, the white sands and the peaceful woods. I take my time and savor the moment.

Then I return with my clubs and ruin the walk entirely.