“Golf is like a love affair: If you don’t take it seriously, it’s not fun; if you do take it seriously, it breaks your heart.”
— Arnold Daly, early 1900s film star
March 21, 2000 — Growing up, when my friends headed out to the golf course, I would always tag along — to drive the cart.
I was good at it. I enjoyed it. I could keep the cart out of the water hazards.
I’d light up a cigar, enjoy a beverage, sit back and watch. “Nice shot,” I’d offer. “Maybe next time,” I’d say. And then I’d drive the cart on down the trail.
I learned early on that I didn’t have the patience to play golf. I didn’t have the skill, either. I didn’t have the patience to attain the skill.
I’ve tried golf once in my year-and-a-half in Gainesville, Ga. I lost a dozen brand new golf balls. I found a few orphaned balls as I searched for mine. I lost them, too.
My decision to avoid golf in adulthood is a financial one, as well.
Golf is an expensive sport to be miserable at. I’d rather take that money, buy a ticket to a Hawks game and watch somebody else play a sport miserably for a while.
“Well, maybe we’ll make a golfer out of you yet,” said Chicopee Woods Golf Course head pro Jim Arendt, as we headed down to the practice range for my lesson. “It takes a fair amount of time, but there are a lot of nice golf courses around the area. So if you’re not playing, you’re missing out.”
I am, it seems, the only person in the area that has been missing out. There were 45,000 rounds of golf played last year at Chicopee alone.
“Truth is, with your limited experience, if we can get you to set up properly today, we’ll be doing real well,” said Arendt, 35.
We got out of the cart and walked over to the long row of practice tees. We headed to the end of the row, far away from anyone else. This, I’m sure, was a precaution taken with the other golfers’ safety in mind.
“Ready to hit?” Arendt asked, handing me a 5-iron.
“We’ll see,” I responded.
“It’s not going to be a big deal if you swing and miss or anything like that,” he added.
So I took some swings. I hit some balls. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
And Arendt stood there. Silently. Watching. Studying. Analyzing.
He wanted to see what — if anything — I was doing correctly. That way he wouldn’t have to reteach me skills I somehow retained from high school gym class.
“OK,” Arendt said after my third swing. “We’re going to talk about your grip.”
It’s amazing how a slight twist of the hand or a subtle movement of the thumb can have such a huge effect on a golf swing. Arendt readjusted my hands on the club.
“Does that feel OK to you?” he asked.
It felt a bit awkward. Just a bit. But it’s not like I was married to my previous method. Honestly, I’m not even sure what my previous method was.
So I took a swing. I hit a ball. Thwack.
It flew straight, high and long.
Arendt is a swing doctor.
“Wow,” Arendt said with a smile. “That was good. Those are the kind that make people get the fever.”
Ah, the fever shot. So elusive. So rare. But the prospect of hitting another ball so perfectly makes all of the mishits in between somehow bearable.
I continued on — thwack, thwack, thwack — with varied success. I hit some fat. I hit some thin. I hooked some. I sliced some. I topped my fair share.
That there are these words for what I was doing — fat, thin, hook, slice, top — fixed firmly in the lexicon of golf, gave me comfort. For I knew several others had been there before me.
“Now let’s pick a target,” Arendt said. “I want you to aim at it.”
There were three sets of flags off in the distance. White to our left. Red even further to our left. And blue straight ahead.
“Aim for the blue,” Arendt instructed.
So I aimed for the blue. I lined my feet up properly. I gripped the club properly. My hands and arms were relaxed. Thwack.
“Whoa,” I groaned as I watched my ball hook, hook and hook. “You said the red flag, right?”
Eventually, I straightened things out. The repetition that the practice range allows is nice. Having the swing doctor on hand for advice is nicer.
“People always learn the fastest when they don’t have very many skills,” Arendt said, reminding me that I didn’t have very many skills. “If you hit balls two or three times a week right now, you’d get better.”
Two days after my lesson I found myself back at Chicopee, back on the practice range. It was miserable out. Cold. Windy. Looked like it was about to rain.
As I walked past the only other fool hitting golf balls that day, he shook his head and said, “It’s too cold for this.”
But, for some reason, we were there. For some reason, we stayed there.
My nose was running. The NCAA basketball tournament was on television. And I was out in the cold hitting buckets of golf balls.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
Is this the fever?