Published Wednesday, April 14, 2010 4:10 PM
Updated Wednesday, April 14, 2010 4:10 PM
The man turned in a flawless performance at the Masters, making the impossible look easy and the routine look reflexive. Congratulations, Mr. Mickelson for a fine performance, indeed.
It occurs to me that I need to forget about everything annoying me lately and just go play some golf. I won’t be at Augusta National, but even the most hack-populated, goat-track municipal courses are beautiful this time of year.
For those of us not lounging around in our green jackets, golf isn’t so much about the game as it is the ritual. You’re outdoors, in a pretty setting. Birds are singing. New grass carpets your surroundings in a beautiful, brilliant emerald backdrop. Even the sand traps look like white beach against a distant shore. You and your buddies probably have a cooler full of beverages ready for enjoyment or consolation. Most importantly, you are now in a place where you can scratch, swear, tell dirty jokes and pass gas with impunity.
Everything about golf just exudes relaxation, repose, and peace of mind, at least until you actually start playing.
If you are like me, you carefully line up your drive, take a practice swing or two, tell yourself to watch the ball and make good contact with a nice, well-practiced swing.
If you are like me, though, your first attempt at tee shot results in something more akin to a spasm than a golf swing. In my case, I have looked up, expecting to see my drive taking off like an Exocet missile, only to find the ball is not landing authoritatively 60 yards from the flag, but instead is dribbling sickeningly to the left, ultimately limping slowly to rest just behind the ladies’ tee box.
“Every time you look up all you see is a bad shot,” someone is likely to say.
“Let the club head do the work,” another might offer helpfully.
“Where’s the #$*&%$ beer cart?” I might venture wistfully.
This gives rise to the next peculiarity of golf: Annoying clichés. We use them like religious liturgy.
The movie “Caddyshack” revolutionized golf in the early 1980s by providing golfers with something to say to each other besides hundred-year-old clichés. I doubt there is a golfer in America under the age of 55 who can get through one hole, much less one round of golf without misquoting entire paragraphs, scenes, pages, of the script.
After twenty something years and thousands of dollars and hours, I have improved. Slightly. Gone, for the most part, are the blistering Jack Russell bean ball drives, heinous right angle shanks, and birdie-to-double bogey four putts. True, my swing is often still compared to a field hand killing a snake with a sling blade. But at least my shots are getting higher in the air than a Jack Russell terrier’s head and more often than not, they’re moving in the general direction I intended them to move.
All this still begs the question: Why would one spend so much money and time on acts of ritual self-abuse?
Simple: Because of those moments when everything clicks.
Your drive finally does, in fact, take off like an Exocet missile, flying 280 yards down the fairway in a perfect, straight line to land within a pitching iron of the green. Your chip is perfect; the ball drops, as gently as a little girl’s kiss, on the edge of the green with just enough power to roll it within 6 feet of the cup. Your putt, a careful and deliberately calculated thing of beauty, drops easily into the hole.
You wonder, idly, how you might look in a green blazer.
Then, if you’re me, you smile as though you actually meant to do all that, then carefully line up your next tee shot, take a deep breath, visualize another towering drive -- then watch in awe as the ball dribbles sickeningly to the left, finally limping slowly to rest just behind the ladies’ tee.
What can I say? Green really isn’t my color, anyway.