“Golf is a good walk spoiled.” –Mark Twain
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But if a great athlete suggests an essential character by his or her style of play–Ryne Sandberg’s perfectionism, Mike Singletary’s intensity–doesn’t any athletic performer do the same, no matter the level of play? Doesn’t clumsy or nervous play suggest a clumsy or nervous personality? For me the temptation has always been to read something about my current state of mind–something perhaps previously undetected–into my performance at golf, that most intensely individual sport. As a high school golfer I was a neurotic with an inconsistent game, just as I was a neurotic wallflower in the hallways. Yet I remember coming home from college one time, stepping onto the course for a quick nine with my parents, and shooting a calm, effortless 42 on a difficult course. What a criminally easy game it was when one was together in body and mind. There was also the time a couple of years ago when my father and I slipped out to a short, woody course on the western fringes of the city and I fired an 82, with a shot to break 80 if I hadn’t had a 6 on the 17th hole. Yet there were also times (too many to count) when it was all I could do to break 100–such is the case when one golfs only a handful of times of year. While I typically affected a “Who cares?” response, just as often it chewed me up inside. If my mind couldn’t control my body, how could it possibly hope to control itself? If the image of Bob Hope carrying a golf club called forth the song “Thanks for the Memories,” the theme to my game was Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s “My Mind’s Got a Mind of Its Own.”
Nevertheless, the golf bug was planted in me again earlier this month when I took part in a charity scramble. Now, a scramble is a different sort of golf pursuit altogether. A group of four or five or more players all shoot, pick the best shot, all shoot from there, pick the best shot, and continue on until someone puts the ball in the hole. It’s low-key, fun, a team effort–and while a player can certainly reveal what a duffer he or she may be, there isn’t the humiliation of hacking shots out from under trees or posting a snowman (an eight, for the unenlightened or the terribly skilled) on the scorecard. Besides, even the worst player can save a stroke with one marvelous shot or well-rolled putt over the course of a round. After the scramble I simply had to go back out and find out something about my true state of mind. Opting for the simplest golfing option available, I headed to the Chicago Park District’s Waveland nine–formally known as the Sydney R. Marovitz Golf Course–for a round one recent Friday morning.
“It’s a swing, not a hit,” I reminded myself, and put a good swing on a fairway wood, only to hit the ball right, squarely into the lone pine tree on the hole. I pulled it out from under, took a drop, hit an iron nice but long, chipped on, and took two putts for a disgraceful opening seven on the par four. On the second hole, I did almost the exact same thing with my drive that I’d done on the first, hitting from the top and trying to compensate in the middle; I finished with a follow-through that suggested a spasmodic Arnold Palmer. This had all the makings of a long day. But the traffic hummed purposefully on Lake Shore Drive, while to the other side of the course sailboats in Montrose Harbor rolled out through the fog. The rain was holding off. How bad a day could it be? I hit another nice fairway wood, this one safe, followed with a nice, high nine-iron onto the green, and took two putts for a par five. Then I hit a three-iron to the fringe of the green on the par-three third, chipped on, and rolled in a ten-foot putt for a second straight par. I was back to respectable–for me–bogey ball after the opening seven.
Yet when I finally pounded a drive on the eighth hole–a high, arcing shot over the hedgerow to the right, beyond the fence, across the northbound traffic and into the southbound lanes, where the ball seemed to be making good time getting downtown–that meant a penalty stroke and distance. And when my next drive dribbled off the tee to the left, I was on my way to that first snowman of the day. Finishing up, I dragged yet another drive to the left, overcompensated with a shot back to the right, pulled my approach to the left–by now I was staggering from side to side–chipped on, and took two putts for a six. I wasn’t about to add anything up, but the holes are there if anyone cares to take the time.
