Straightening up around the house, which I do twice a year whether it needs it or not, I found this golf scorecard mixed in with some unopened mail. On inspection, it shows my scores for what turned out to be my last round of the year, on an October Wednesday at Pheasant Acres Golf Course in Rogers, or Corcoran, or another of those amorphous northwestern exurbs. For me, an approximately typical day on the links: a disastrous front nine out of which I salvaged mediocrity by playing the last eight holes in five over par.
Trying now to remember anything of interest, I recall that my second shot on the eleventh hole was really good—a 7- or maybe 8-iron to within about 10 feet of the hole. Missed the birdie putt, naturally. For some reason, I also remember the last hole. Long but crooked drive, way right. Trees prevented me from aiming my second at the green, but I could hit low, just to the left of a tree trunk, toward the very left front edge of the green. I did that pretty well and, since the pin was at the front of the green, I was probably only 15 yards from the hole. I chipped it close and one of my charitable partners who was already on the green knocked the ball back to me—appropriate, as there was probably about a 60 percent chance I'd have made the putt. A rock solid par on the card!
I can't remember a thing about the front 9. How did I manage to make a 7 on the sixth hole, a nondescript par 4 of no special difficulty? Must have missed my putt for a 6 but the memory is gone. We sat outside afterwards, and I think I had whiskey, not beer, because it was a little chilly plus I like whiskey.
Sometimes, when I've played golf and had a couple, I like to imagine that the game had never been invented and some drinkers in their drunkenness were making it up. You have these sticks, some with mallets and others with blades at the end, and you grip the opposite end and whack this ball off the ground. It's about the size of a ping pong ball, but with a hard cover and wound tight so that it flies nice if you catch it right. Around a quarter of a mile away, there is a hole in the ground about twice as big as the ball. The object is to strike the ball into this distant hole using as few "hits" as possible. Various factors abet and hinder the goal. The sticks are specially designed, different ones for different distances. On your first "hit," you get to prop the ball up on a peg, so that you can really whack it with a "mallet stick"; after that, you can only strike the ball as it lies on the ground, for which the bladed sticks are designed, though you can't hit the ball as far with them. Once you start hitting, you can't touch the ball: you just have to keep striking it again and again from wherever the last strike caused it to come to rest. The area between the starting point and the hole is free of obstructions, just grass cut short, but, if you hit it crooked, there might be long grass, trees, water, or—I know this sounds odd but we've been drinking—sand pits off to the sides. Once you get close to the hole, however, there is a special kind of grass, cut very short, so that the ball rolls easily along it, though since the ground might be sloped you can't always aim right at the hole but have to judge how much the ball will curve after you start it rolling with the stick designed for use on the special grass.
Now you're on your third drink and the question arises: about how many times do you think you'd have to hit the ball to get it into this hole a quarter mile away? I think I'd say 20, maybe 30. I couldn't imagine 18 separate tests or trials: it would take more than a day. Maybe one thing I like about this exercise is that it makes me feel okay about averaging around 5, maybe 6 on the ones no closer than a quarter mile. Have to admit that the technology for the equipment, especially the sticks, is really very good and benefits me more than I'd imagine possible, even if others seem to derive even greater benefits.
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