What Did I Have I Don't Have Now?

My six year love affair with golf has hit a rough patch, and the relationship seems to be deteriorating.  Now, I’m not saying it’s on the rocks, but it’s certainly on the pebbles and I don’t mean Pebble Beach.

It all started with a brief, early flirtation  in the late 70's when a friend and I took a few golf  lessons and tried playing on one of the public courses.  In the end, pregnancy and post pregnancy forced us to constantly recalibrate our golf swings and led us to forsake the golf course for the racket club which also had a nursery.

 I renewed my acquaintance with golf when Paul and I joined a golf club six years ago. Things started slowly between us, and we had no unrealistic expectations.  I played with a congenial group of beginners, and we encouraged each other.  It was a good day when I scored below my maximum of 11 strokes on every hole, although we were an upbeat group and referred to an 11 as “a double thumbs-up.” The day I called my dad to tell him I’d broken 80 for nine holes was a real milestone.

The relationship, like any other, has had its ups and downs – lovers’ quarrels you might say.  Many times the troll who lives inside golf holes has put out an invisible hand and stopped my perfect putt on the rim of the cup.   I've hit out of sand traps, creating sandstorms ala Lawrence of Arabia and turning my sunscreen-coated body into human sandpaper. (Sandblasting doesn’t make your teeth whiter.)   I've tried to hit over ponds, lakes and streams, sending countless balls to sleep with the fishes ala Lucca Brazzi in “The Godfather.”  Seduced by the occasional magnificent drive or incredible putt, I learned to ignore those little blips.

After lessons and lots of play, my game improved to the point where I sometimes reached my goal of a nine-hole score below my age.  When a beginning golfer with a high handicap starts playing well, the reward is more gifts and prizes than any male admirer could ever provide.  The usual flowers, jewelry and candy (in the form of chocolate golf balls) came my way along with visors, socks, golf gloves, glassware, gift certificates and a lovely, salmon-colored shawl.  This propelled the affair into the “hot and heavy” stage; and I found myself sneaking out to the golf course or the driving range 4 or 5 days a week - sometimes, more than once a day.   At my peak, I scored a 49 for nine holes, a marvelous feat for me, even though the husband of one of my friends said the odds of  a player with my handicap scoring that well were about the same as the odds of me being eaten by a shark on the golf course.

The romance started to fade after I came back from three intense days at a great golf school playing more like

a chimp than a champ.  Now, the game has turned on me like a snake, without so much as a warning rattle.  I can’t hit far, I can’t hit straight and sometimes, I can’t hit at all.   I’m not telling my current handicap because you probably wouldn’t believe it; and, anyway, my brother says handicaps don’t go that high.  Now, the only thing I do well is trick shots like driving the ball into a rock wall so my tee shot winds up behind me or ricocheting the ball off of an out-of-bounds marker, forcing my cart partner to take cover.

Can this relationship be saved?  Well, even though I feel betrayed and discouraged, I’m not ready for a total break-up yet.  I still enjoy the beauty of a golf course, the friends I’ve made through golf and the weekly golf league lunches.  I also have a cute, new golf skort that I want to wear this summer; and, at this point, I’m perfectly positioned for the leagues’s “Most Improved Player” award.  Plus, a woman I met on the Woodson Bend golf course at Lake Cumberland told me about a new golf game that sounds promising.  “I play Best Ball,” she confided in her soft, sweet, Kentucky drawl.  “I hit it and, if it isn’t my best ball, I hit it over again.”

 If you want to know how I really feel, click the following link  for a musical postscript  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UG66GQUvvns