by Lou Maze
It has been years since I played golf. In truth I only tried to play golf. It is more realistic to say that golf played me.
They say golf “is a mental game.” And I can attest to this because I wasn’t mental till I tried it.
The first shot is called ‘teeing off’ and after about five swings I sure am ‘teed off’ but the ball hasn’t moved an inch. I hit the ball more often with my own spittle while cursing at it.
They call it a Mulligan, when you swing and miss. They call my ‘mulligans’ moats because by the time I get through swinging there is turbulence in the air, a trench on the green down to bedrock and still, the ball hasn’t moved.
When I finally manage to hit the ball, it gets even more pathetic. After the dust has settled my ball has rolled two inches forward, due more to wind pressure than contact with the club. When I do get some loft to under the ball it flies to the trees like a Robin with a nest full of eggs.
I even tried lessons. Stand with your feet shoulder width apart, bend your knees and do something equally bizarre with your bottom. My mother told me I could get pregnant in a position like that.
By the third lesson I was in tears. Even my “approach to the ball” was wrong. Since then I have refused to call golf a game because anything that makes me cry is not a game.
My husband was golf crazy at the time. He watched my attempts and accepted that I was beyond hope, so he let me cheat.
He’d tee off and then go for a walk. I’d tee off and after the dust cleared I’d pick up my ball and try to catch up.
We were well into our version of the game when I met my first “Golf Nazi”. He told me “you can’t do that. It is against the rules.”
He represented the ownership of the course and he was deadly serious. I was cheating and even though the player I was cheating on, was the one who suggested I cheat in first place, it was not allowed.
We spent the rest of the game skulking around like criminals and I haven’t stepped foot on a golf course since. I don’t think they miss me.
