Well, looks like Ill have to embarrass myself again.
Guess I should be used to it by now, but Im not.
So theres this golf outing planned in a couple of days.
And Ill be playing, despite some serious misgivings.
North Carolina is home to some of the finest courses in the Southeast and Ive not so much as hit a bucket of balls since my wife and I landed here just after the turn of the century; in fact, the community in which we live boasts a couple of 18-hole layouts, but they might as well be shark tanks for as many times as Ive ventured into their environs.
I dont get golf.
I can hit the ball.
I can putt it, too.
But I do both far too often.
I think thats a by-product of the first time I ever swung a club, when I used it as a weapon against the rich and powerful.
No ... I didnt smash smug country club members in the face with my three-iron, but I had rebellion in my heart.
I was 16 years old, full of spit and vinegar, when my mother focused my burgeoning, brewing anarchic tendencies on what she called, euphemistically, the Non-Profit Clinic.
It was, in actuality, a sprawling medical complex, meant to generate millions ... and it was going to be built directly across the street from the house wed called home since 1965.
It was a blight that had to stopped.
And, to quote Barney Fife, my job was to NIP IT ... nip it in the bud.
Rationally, I knew there was no way to stop progress, but Mom was so unhappy about it that I did what any red-blooded American son would.
I pulled out my trusty three-iron, walked across to the field where surveyors had spent the day measuring and sighting, and I proceeded to decapitate each and every stake that theyd pounded into the ground.
My club was like a scythe and I wielded it with no mercy.
Well? Mom asked when I joined her at the kitchen table.
Easier than pulling out dandelions, I said.
Ill never forget her smile.
The Non-Profit Clinic opened for business the next summer.
Last time I looked, it was still there.
I DIDNT USE THAT three-iron (or any other club in my starter set) for the next four years.
Oh, I took a class in golf as part of my physical education requirement at Notre Dame, but that was mostly about hitting buckets of balls at the driving range and practicing my putting on the little green behind the dining hall.
Visualize, the coach/professor said to the class, a hula hoop around the cup. Just try to putt the ball into that imaginary circle and youll be fine.
Now, I understand his logic: a drive, a chip and two putts to save par.
Then, it just seemed like giving up.
You mean, I asked, I shouldnt even try to make the putt?
He tugged on his visor and glared at me.
Son, he said, Ive watched you putt for nearly six weeks. Just picture that damn hula hoop and shut up.
A couple of summers later, after my junior year, I was part of a slowpitch softball team composed mainly of guys in my high school graduating class.
We were pretty good, winning more than we lost and taking the league title at least once, though it might have been twice.
One Fourth of July weekend, we were playing in one of those big holiday tournaments and, having won the night before, a bunch of us decided to play a round of golf before our next game, which wasnt scheduled until that evening.
So, I packed up my starter set -- still in the garage at the house -- and hoped for the best.
It must have been at least 90 degrees that afternoon -- hot like only Ohio can get, sticky and muggy and not a breath of wind -- and of course, we walked 18 holes in that furnace.
My only clear recollection of that debacle -- aside from the fact that we lost two games that night and were out of the tournament by midnight -- is that I drank 12 Mountain Dews once we staggered, stupefied, into the clubhouse.
Serious dehydration.
In the years that followed, Id play once a year, on Columbus Day, with a friend and former softball teammate who, owing to the fact that he worked in state government, always had that day off.
But the thing about playing golf in early October is that when you use an orange ball, which is all that I had in my bag, even if you hit it right down the middle of the fairway, you can (and will) lose it in the fallen leaves.
Gonna cost you a stroke, my friend always said. Not that it matters.
AND THATS THE THING about golf thats always killed me. In order to get better, you have to play all the time and if you play all the time, youre likely to lose your mind.
Its an incredibly inexact science.
In baseball or bowling or darts or pool or ping-pong or Trivial Pursuit, there are ways to get better. Golf, it seems to me, just has a dramatic element of randomness that even between a decent putt and the next drive, theres always the possibility that youll find yourself hip deep in the weeds three minutes after youve actually made a par.
Its mentally ravaging and can ruin your confidence as easily as Jimi Hendrix used a Zippo to get that fuzzy, unearthly sound on All Along the Watchtower.
Its been many months -- maybe a couple of years -- since I last played golf but, by the time you read this, Ill have gone back out there to torture myself.
This time, itll be with no expectations of doing well, since Ill be joined by my stepson and his best friend, who are part of a group thatll be joining us for a week on the beach.
My wife approached me gently as I read a David Bowie biography.
The guys, she said, wonder if youd like to play golf with them while theyre down here.
Why? I asked. Im terrible at golf.
I think they just want to beat you at something, she said.
Thats fine, I said, thinking to myself, Well just see about that.
But thats fools gold.
Honestly, Im just looking forward to getting out in the great outdoors, laughing when I hit one in the water and simply having a little fun in the sun.
Or the rain.
If I were any good at golf, Id probably have tuned up a bit, played a quick nine after hitting the driving range.
But Im not.
So I didnt.
I did have one practical concern, though.
Do you know, I asked my wife after shed arranged a tee time at a tony country club, if I can play in sneakers?
Maybe you can rent some golf shoes, she said.
This isnt some two-bit bowling alley, I said, looking at images on the swanky website. They probably have serious rules.
A day or so later, she had an answer.
You can play in your sneakers, she said. The man said it would be OK.
I harbor no illusions. My golf game is rusty with age and, truth be told, was never very good to begin with, but I will have a good time with the young guys.
All I want is to hit one good drive, maybe sink a long putt, something that rekindles in my spirit the spark of doing something futile to make my mother smile.
I just have to picture a surveyors stake on the tee and a hula hoop on the green.
