A rookie “sports-
writer,” nervous and paranoid, is attending his first staff meeting. He’s
chastised by the opinionated veteran food writer, ominously warning the new kid
about “ignoring golf.” The sportswriter’s never played golf. He thinks golfers
are dorks.
Barton Creek Country Club, April ’92: Determined to prove this premise,
the sportswriter enrolls in the Barton Creek Golf School. His intention? To pen
a caustic, scalding screed, lambasting those whose life consists of swinging at
a dimpled ball. Three days later, the sportswriter, hands swollen to the size
of Christmas hams, leaves the school, utterly obsessed. Not that golf is fun.
No, it is that he, a jock in his youth, can be so pathetically inept at
striking an unmoving object.
Lakeway Academy of Golf, June ’96: The sportswriter, now a confirmed
masochist, looks for a “vacation.” He stumbles upon a brochure advertising
Lakeway’s summer school, held at the Kissing Camels Country Club, “The most
beautiful golf course in all of Colorado.”
The writer’s vacations have been marred. Class-4 hurricanes, blinding
blizzards, torn retinas, and broken bones are standard fare. A local gives the
obligatory “it’s never” speech. You know, it’s never been so hot
cold/rainy/windy/muggy/dry or snowy. All in reverse proportion to whatever it
is you want to do. True to form, sunny, dry Colorado, which had been
experiencing a Texas-like drought, was choking on rain. Huge, black,
lightning-filled clouds covered the sky. The writer sold his girlfriend — a
non-golfer — on this trip, lavishing praise on the beautiful pool at the foot
of Pike’s Peak. The rain is relentless.
Sitting around the club patio, on lunch break with his fellow duffers, he
thinks it’s harder coming up with a story this time. He doesn’t think the
game’s funny anymore. He’s not here to toss sardonic daggers. He needs to know
how to hit the green from 50 yards out. He needs to know how to distribute his
weight in an uneven lie. He desperately needs a way, short of putting, out of
the sand. He needs to know, from 130 yards out with the wind in his face,
looking at an uphill pull to a raised, bunkered green at an altitude of 5,230
feet, in the rain, which club to choose, 7 or 8 iron? He’s become a dork.
But, anyone rabid enough to come thousands of miles to blister their hands and
egos isn’t deterred by some rain. Though even the clubmembers are wise enough
to stay indoors, the fanatical little gathering could be found, no matter how
hard the deluge, on the putting green (“Eyes over the ball”), in a muddy sand
trap (“Weight forward!”), on the pitching range (“Toss it underhand”), on the
driving range (“Head down, elbow out, weight some damn place”), or out on the
course, the rumble of thunder their constant companion.
The tiny assembly rather nicely spanned the entire spectrum of golf “skills.”
They include a financial tycoon and his wife, both rank beginners. The tycoon
is looking for a way to relax. Representing quite nicely the vast middle level
of ugly hackers, the writer and a youthful optometrist from Canada. Loyce and
Aubry embodied the sun-drenched, spent-years-in-a-golf-cart set. Loyce played
on the ’54 Rice Cotton Bowl team. He’s a big man with massive, leathered hands.
He’s the class big hitter. Aubry never, ever, misses a fairway. These two play
a lot of golf.
The instructors, Brian and Jay, water incessantly dripping from sodden rain
gear, were ever-patient, though they would have been quite happy — more than
once — to head into the clubhouse, if the obsessive group had not been so
determined to master the various and sundry maddening techniques at hitting the
stupid ball.
The sportswriter, ready at any time to complain and gripe about almost
anything, was cowed into impersonating a jolly fellow. No matter how merciless
the conditions, no one ever lamented the unfortunate meteorological luck.
Sunday, the last morning, naturally dawned picture perfect, displaying an
almost purple clear sky and a heretofore obscured mountain range. No one said
(though the writer thought it), “Well, shit! Now it gets nice!” This relentless
optimism, coupled with Jay’s frequent lectures on positive thinking (“I really
am a good golfer,” “I really don’t suck,” “I’m not a loser”), had an
uncharacteristic effect on the sportswriter. He became indifferent to the rain
and cold. He didn’t even gripe too bitterly about the split pea soup — one of
nature’s most revolting concoctions — served for lunch.
The tycoon’s wife had a career of thrills, holing a 60-foot chip and a 30-foot
putt. The optometrist cured his slice. Loyce and Aubry played 18 holes after
six hours of school. The sportswriter, helpless as a duckling from inside of 90
yards, learned the pitch shot. He could get out of the sand. Indeed, he became
a believer. After an ugly shank, he learned it was bad form pounding the club
into the mud. Instead, he closed his eyes and thought a good thought. After a
nasty, snapping duck-hook, he didn’t fall to his knees crying out to an
indifferent, nay, spiteful God. No, no. Instead, as Jay suggested, he made an
affirmation: “I am worthy. I am good. It’s just a golf shot. I am worthy.” n
This article appears in June 28 • 1996 and June 28 • 1996 (Cover).