I'm taking a break from the cruise recap to delve into some self analysis. Sorry, this is one of the steps in my Golfers Anonymous program and I figured I could get it done in one fell swoop. They say the first step is admitting you have a problem.
Every junky remembers that first spike. The drug works through your veins, seeps into you soul and leaves you wanting more. You come back week after week, day after day, craving that calm, the clarity, the buzz, and more is never enough.
I don't do drugs. I'm messed up in the head enough that adding more junk to this melon would put me in state of using my own poo as writing utensil. My crack, my heroin, my mary-ju-wana is golf. Poison on grass. The clubs are hypodermic needles, and the golf courses pushers standing on dark street corners ("tee times for ten bucks. You want to play some golf, mon?") promising life's highs in a dime golf bag. Knocking in a par is the buzz that keeps you craving more, and carding an 8 on a par three is the depression that sends a junky spiraling into self pity.
That's what golf is to me.
I'm a half-step away from giving a testimonial to a room-full of fellow golf junkys looking to break the addictive spell cast by the links. It would be fine if I was one of those celebrity golf druggies (low-handicappers who get pissed when they leave a par put 5-feet short) who are invited to the best parties to snort the finest shit and pop the cleanest pills. No, instead I'm a crack whore who'd sell his blood, sperm, right hairy nut for a sub-100 round. Give me a string of pars. Let me split every fairway with confidence. I want to get out of the sand trap in one shot rather than watching the ball hit the lip and roll back to my feet, leaving a mocking trail of my horrendous shot in the sand.
That's what golf can give me. Will it? I don't know, ask my right nut.
I blame my old man (doesn't every junky blame their parental units for something?). He took me to the course when I was nine years old, handed me his 9-iron and told me to swing down on the ball (is there any other way to swing at the golf ball, dad?). He wouldn't give me any other clubs to mess with, likely afraid that I'll learn the game's inherent frustration associated and wrap his driver around the nearest tree. Instead, I was happy to leave two-foot deep divots with his nine.
Then, the old man and ma bought me my first set of clubs. Doug Sanders (who?) model, driver through putter. Baseball wasn't in my future, but golf, with my Doug Sanders clubs, oh yeah, watch out Jack Nicklaus I'm coming for your wrinkled old ass. Arnold Palmer can suck my putter. Byron Nelson couldn't carry my bag, or my golf clubs. That's what these clubs would do for me. I could feel it. I would be Tiger Woods before Tiger Woods. How hard can this game be? The ball doesn't move! It sits there on the tee screaming to be hit. "Smack my ass with that 3-wood, daddy!"
Years later, after yet another triple-digit round (can someone tell me what it's like to shoot in the 90s?) I finally decided to look up Doug Sanders' golf record because I knew the problem wasn't with my game but rather the clubs. Here's what wikipedia says about my clubs' namesake: He had 13 top-10 finishes in major championships, including four second place finishes: 1959 PGA Championship, 1961 U.S. Open, and 1966 and 1970 British Opens. He was well known for missing a short putt on the final hole that would have won him the 1970 British Open, before losing in a playoff the next day to Jack Nicklaus.
Woohoo! Two second place finishes in major championships during a 20-year career! Oh how did he ever fly below the radar? How did he get his own line of clubs? Was I the only one who played with his line of clubs? If this schmuck can get his own line of clubs, I think I'm in line to slap my name on a driver and some irons. I'll call 'em Michael's Big Sticks. I'll sell the shit out of 'em.
I'm sure I was the only Nitwit with Doug Sanders golf, and here is why: Starting with a junior college golf class, Doug Sanders' club heads have had a penchant for shearing off at the shaft. I hit the ball, and there goes the club head out driving my shout. Never a good thing when a dude loses a piece off his shaft, and for golf clubs it means you have a metal pool cue and a hunk of metal that is only good for lobbing through plate glass windows before robbing a joint blind. Good bye 5-iron, so long seven, hasta lavista 3-iron, I hardly knew ye. Doug Sanders' 9-iron head went farther than the ball and the divot during a heated round between me and Ma. It would have been my first win over my chief competition, but that SOB Doug Sanders screwed me out of it. Years later, using some hand-me down Jack Nicklaus models (now we're talking about a real golfer), I was able to edge Ma by one stroke and learned not to do so again. It took me three days to unwedge her pitching wedge from my rectum. Lesson learned, Ma, thanks (I wish she used a club with less loft, like a 3- iron, it would have been easier to remove). She hates losing.
With just a driver, 3-wood and putter left from that set I thought me and ol' Dougey Boy had reached a mutual agreement - I won't curse his name or drive by his Houston home anymore, hurling broken club heads at his front windows, and he keep the rest of my clubs from his set in tact.
He broke that promise Saturday.
Prior to the round, Marc and I decided we'd do a shot for every 8 or worse we carded during the round. With my Charger flask (courtesy of Wife who combined two of my favorite things into one package - alcohol and the Chargers) armed with Cutty Shark Scotch inside we agreed this would be better than betting money on each hole. I scored five or six 8s - I lost track - during the round. Yeah, it was a loooonngg day. Shooting a 125 will drive any man to drink. By the by, Patrick wussed out on the "Shot for 8s" golf challenge blaming a weak stomach. He didn't get the memo that golf's a team sport, I guess.
When I golf I like to see the course. I don't play golf to see what's only in the middle of the fairway, I want to check out the left side, the right side, toodle along the lake, maybe check out the trees. My game is centered on sight-seeing, not low scores. That's not cost-efficient in my book. The byproduct of such a game plan? Scores better suited for bowlers. Playing in the middle is boring, plus it's fascist. I'm an equal opportunity hacker, I pay attention to the whole course.
So there I am, reminiscing over another "great" 6-foot chip that still leaves me 20-feet shy of the green - not 20-feet shy of the pin mind, THE GREEN - which tells you what kind of golfer I am. In my hand is my "trusty" Cougar wedge and my putter because Marc has the golf cart after putting his chip shot on the green, the bastard (he only did two or three shots during the round - showoff). I drop my "reliable" Doug Sanders putter to focus on my second - or was it my third? - chip when I hear the long forgotten "tinnngggg" of a club head snapping. I think to myself, "what the heck was that? Did I drop it on a sprinkler head?" I look down and there's my putter in two pieces - shaft and head. Doug Sanders kicked me in the nuts again.
Lucky for me, I have friends who like to laugh at my misfortune and take pity on me all the same. Marc offered to share his putter for the rest of the round. If you know golf history, Marc's putter looks like something from Bobby Jones' day in the 1920s. I think it was a prop in "The Legend of Bagger Vance." In fact, as I told Marc, I think I used such a putter once beforeto hit my blue ball into the clown's mouth to win a free game of mini-golf.
Of course, with my first shot using the putter I sunk a 10-footer, so I had to take back almost everything I said about the artifact.
I parred one hole on the round and had more 6s than 8s, which will keep me coming back for more juice. Just like a crack whore, I can't quit you, golf.
But Doug Sanders, you're dead to me.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment