July 24, 2008 

I am learning how to golf. Not REALLY by choice.  It was more like, Valentine’s Day of this year, a pink and white golf bag with a bow showed up in the middle of my great room. Complete with a lady’s DRIVER.  (and not for a limo in the driveway.)

Andy golfs … very well. In fact, he has been golfing most of his life and on golf teams for high school and college. Woopie. He wants me to learn so we can spend that quality time together - translated “if you don’t golf or at least make an attempt to golf several times a week, you gonna be one lonely chick until winter.”

I tried golfing when I was younger. In fact, I come from a golfing family, as my Uncle Frank was a golf professional at a country club in Ohio and later in life he bought his own course up near Lake Erie. I had ample opps to learn the sport, it just put me to sleep. I preferred rowdier, busier sports like volleyball, tennis and softball. Move, move, move … run, run, run. Golf … bend knees, cock head to view pathway, hold club, swing club,  either miss ball or whip a huge chunk of grass into mid air and watch ball drop 5 feet in front of you. I vacillate between those two.

Can one golf without lessons? Sure you can. You swing. You knock it a few feet. The guys take off in the golf carts without you, swigging beers and smoking cigars,  while you are expected to keep up while running ball to ball across the fairways. You move your ball out of water. Out of woods. Out of trees. No one is keeping your score. You make up your own rules as you go along.

As a girl, you get to tee off from the red markers - typically a few yards away from the boys and allegedly puts you into their game. So, technically because you are given a head start you should be able to keep up.  Basically, the only thing I can keep up with is the beer drinking on a hot day. I don’t care for beer, but when it is 110 degrees in the shade and you are being forced to keep up no more than 20 over par at each hole, swigging cold beer becomes a survival tactic. By the 5th hole, I am pretty well wired and a joy to behold.

I have yet to figure out what makes golf so alluring. You do the same thing over and over for 18 holes.  The guys swing - they either high five a good drive or make excuses - bad wind, wrong ball, poor placement of trees, what idiot put a lake there, a flying bird got in the way, you in the sand, man. Need more beer.

And they can pee in the woods behind trees of their liking. Girls have to hold it for nine holes at some courses.

I am surprisingly good at golf. I would be better if I had lessons OR if Andy would take the time to give me some feedback other than “You took your eyes off the ball… swing like a pendulum … how hard it that? NO, you cannot use your driver for everything … drink more beer. It’ll help.”

I am a hit or miss. It either flies a long way or it falls off the tee before I even have a chance to hit it.  And water? Forget about it. I had one great shot at a lake recently. It was a huuuuge lake. There was not a chance in hell I was going to get a ball that far. I basically told the three guys I was golfing with that I had two choices - either drop 12 balls into the water and we could all laugh it off and I  could stop now OR I could just go straight to the green and put from 25 feet…”

Andy : “You get your butt to the lake’s edge and smack that ball into the geese on the other side.”

You can guess what happened.

Sorry geese.

I have lessons waiting. I am going to work at the game. I am resolved to make it my own with Nancy Lopez pink clothes, pink club covers, pink balls … Pink makes everything wonderful.

Fore!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ml