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How much I suck at golf

The first hole

The first hole

Yes, I suck at golf.  That’s a given.  But I wanted yesterday afternoon to somehow break the monotony of my daily walk and in my desperation, I concocted the idea to do it on a golf course.

Luckily, there’s one at the end of our street.  So I strolled about a half-mile down the block to the Rancho Park 3-Par course, plopped down $8.25 for the greens fee, the rental of three clubs, and a ball.  It’s actually a great bargain.

And then, for the next 90 minutes or so, I traipsed up and down the lawn chasing a little white ball.

I have to say, it was pleasant enough being out there.  It was a crisp autumn day — crisp by southern California standards — and there was a nice breeze.  I have no complaints about the environment.

It’s the game.

It’s not like I’ve invested months of my life learning the game.  Or sunk way too much money in a country-club membership.  I was into this for less than the cost of an afternoon movie.

I’m just not sure it was as amusing.

I’d read Carl Hiaasen’s hilarious book The Downhill Lie last year.  He writes laughingly about his frustrations trying to return in advanced middle age to a game he enjoyed playing with his father when he was a teenager.  In the end, he seemed to have only intermittent luck imposing his will on a spherical piece of dimpled plastic.

I have to say my luck was less than intermittent.  I started out horribly and stayed with it just long enough to get really bad.  A ringing endorsement, huh?

scorecard

20101108 golf scorecard

So in my case, what should have been a pleasant Par-3 turned into a Par-6.55.

Luckily, I was humiliating only myself.  There was nobody in front of me on the course, and nobody behind me.  At one point, as I was setting up on the 7th hole, a squirrel stopped gnawing on the woven towel attached to the ballwasher long enough to laugh at me.  That was the only derision I got from outside my own head.

So did it work?  Well, I’d intended it to be a diversion from walking and in that regard it succeeded.  The whole time I was on the course, I didn’t think at all about the mobility.  That’s because I was consumed with wondering why the ball wasn’t going where I aimed it.

Statistically, I succeeded on five of the nine holes in bettering my score from the previous hole.  Even by that questionable yardstick, I was at 55 per cent — hardly anything to crow about.

Then again, I got the aerobic exercise of having to bend over nine times to fish the ball out of the cup.

That’s got to be worth something, doesn’t it?

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  • Kitty Alva November 9, 2010, 11:46 pm

    Hilarious… very courageous too.