Except for Top Golf I’ve never golfed.
It looks like something I’d like to do. But I’m lousy at team sports and don’t have good hand-eye coordination.
Plus, I have the attention span of a gnat. Also, I’d rather snow ski. The cost is about the same and there’s less peer pressure.
When you ski you slide all over the mountain going where ever your skis are pointed and gravity takes you. You have to dodge snowboarders (and they have to dodge you) and sometimes when the slopes are crowded it’s a big, messy free-for-all.
There are few expectations, other than don’t cut someone off, don’t crash into anyone, and don’t ski out-of-bounds.
Golf is different. Golf, apparently, comes with more rules and expectations. For one thing, you’re expected to dress a certain way (not in jeans and hiking boots like Glenn and I were wearing). You’re expected to know what you’re doing, beyond which end of the club to use. And you are not supposed to show up at the Pro Shop to say you’re “just dropping in to give golf a whirl to see what it’s like.”
Golf is not for the frivolous. Dabbling is frowned upon. Players are responsible people who take the game seriously. They even adhere to golf “etiquette,” which we will discuss later.
But Glenn and I didn’t know this when we showed up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to swing a stick and drive a cart. We planned to spend an hour or so on the course and then go hiking.
It was my birthday and we were celebrating at a spectacular resort located in the Tucson foothills. The resort fee included a complementary round of golf at a course designed by none other than Arnold Palmer, a superstar golfer who was famous for drinking lemonade mixed with tea.
Anyway, Arnold opted to stop designing after nine holes instead of going for the usual 18, which worked for us since we didn’t want to spend all morning shanking and whiffing. Also, we were being strategic: If we found that we didn’t like golfing we could just stop at whatever part of the golf course we were on, throw the club in the cart, and drive back to the pro shop. No harm, no foul.
The golf course website says this course will test your swing which sounded about right since for us everything would be a test. Also noted were dramatic elevation changes (hope the golf cart is beefy enough to climb the hills), swirling winds (eeesh, another corneal abrasion if sand-trap dust blows into my eye), and this course will truly test players of all levels (this would be true if this course welcomed players of all levels).
But we didn’t know we weren’t wanted until we got there.
The place was deserted because a) it was the middle of the week and b) pandemic. We drove along a road that bordered the empty fairway and rejoiced because there would be no one there to get judgy when we teed off. Plus, we wouldn’t be in anyone’s way or otherwise be seen as a nuisance.
We knew to start with the Pro Shop and we were wearing our covid masks which, it turned out, was the only thing we did right. Our first mistake was to tell the pro shop attendant that we were here for our freebie round of golf and that we (upbeat, cheery voices) were happy to be here because this was going to be so much fun!
We now know that the correct way to do this is to say, “Hello, we have an 8:45 tee time.”
Anyway, Pro Guy’s mask kinda sagged (maybe his jaw dropped?) and he went from helpful to wary. But being the smooth operator that he was, he rallied and switched to Golf 101 mode telling us that this was a nine-hole golf course and it was 3,241 yards.
He was speaking Glenn’s language. Glenn is a numbers guy and he loves nothing more than the sound of numbers hitting his ears. Of course, the yardage meant nothing to either one of us, but I think Pro Guy had noted our hiking boots and was trying to give us an idea of the walking we’d be doing. Or maybe it was the preliminary to a discussion about course ratings, average driver distance, and so forth. He did some more numbers including “35” which was (come on say it with me) par for the course.
Pro Guy noted that his tutorial had done little to make us appreciate the importance of the game or the sanctity of the golf course. We were unserious people out for a lark.
So, he switched modes and went for a clubby, chummy approach. He said he wanted our experience to be a good one, he could tell that we had potential
(snork), he could see we had a passion for the game (snork-snork) and thus he would recommend we first spend some time on the driving range.
Whoa, back up the wagon. We’ve spent plenty of time at Top Golf and that’s sort of a driving range. No, no we wanted the golf course experience. We wanted to ride around in the cart and see the holes and swing the club.
Pro Guy’s mask tightened (clenching his jaw?). He agreed that yes, okay we should be able to do all that but not at his place. Of course, he didn’t say that. No, no, he’s a suave guy. He said we needed a course that would best suit our needs, one he could recommend, and where he could set up a tee time for us. It was down the road a way. He probably would have driven us there, too.
Glenn wanted to know if the round there would also be complementary while the thought bubble that formed over my head said: “What if they don’t want us either?”
Pro Guy and I stared at each other over our masks trying to figure out our next move. Glenn, with no numbers to crunch, started rummaging through a display of golf balls.
I stared out the window at the golf carts all lined up and ready to roll.
“It’s my birthday,” I said, just like any other five-year-old.
Pro Guy broke first. “If that’s what you want to do, I can’t tell you no,” he said.
Mind you he didn’t say, “I don’t want you here” but he got as close to it as possible without crossing the customer service line.
In fact, let me translate.
Pro Guy thought bubble: “If I refuse to let you on the course, you will sue me for some new kind of discrimination that’s never been heard of having to do with non-golfers’ rights and you’ll win the lawsuit, it will be all over the news, and I’ll be out of a job.”
So, we were going to play ball. Or play golf. We needed a tee time and golf stuff. What Pro Guy didn’t know was that he was dealing with a couple of cheapskates. What we didn’t know was that a free round of golf meant we were going to have to pay for something.
He started ringing up the things we would need: $25 for the golf cart and $25 for the golf cart. What? We’re getting charged double? Is there a surcharge for being a pain-in-the-butt? No, it’s because it’s $25 for each butt that sits in the cart.
Next, we needed clubs. A bag of clubs was $49. We thought we could split a bag. In fact, just give us two clubs: One made of iron or wood for distance, to get the ball most of the way to the hole, and the other a putter to get the ball in the hole.
But no-o-o-o-o. Club-sharing is not allowed. Plus, clubs are not gender-neutral. Glenn had to have men’s clubs and I had to have women’s clubs. And were we right- or left-handed? (Well, I throw with my left and bat with my right, so you tell me.)
And yes, we had to have all the clubs. At the very least we would need the putter, the pitching wedge, the sand wedge, the driver, the passenger, the three, five, seven, and nine irons, and the three wood.
You’re kidding, right? Are the clubs labeled so we know which is which? I saw Tin Cup and Kevin Costner didn’t make Renee Russo drag all that stuff around. In fact, Kevin told Renee to “grip it and rip it.” Remember that? He was talking about one club. Uno.
Anyway, back to our shopping list. Pro Guy walked us through what else we needed.
Tees. And golf balls. Lots of them. Crikey. It turns out that beginners should bring as many as 12 golf balls. Maybe there’s one ball that goes with each club. Or maybe we run out because we run over them with the golf cart. And we needed a golf glove (just one, like Michael Jackson) and a ball marker (which I planned to use to label the clubs).
Cha-ching, cha-ching. Holy Sticker Shock, Batman!
Have we talked about golf etiquette? Now might be a good time.
My friend Mr. Google says there are five dos and don’ts starting with Be quiet when someone is taking a shot. Tell that to fans at the 16th hole of the Phoenix Open. Sir Google also says it’s a 62-yard par-3 and one of the easiest holes on the PGA Tour, with one caveat: It’s surrounded on three sides by grandstands that hold 17,000 crazed fans. The nickname for this hole is “The Coliseum.” It is called the loudest hole in golf.
The next four etiquette rules are:
Take your time, but not too much. (Sounds like Zen or Michael Pollan who said, “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.”)
Losing the game can be frustrating, but losing your cool is significantly worse. (Well, duhh. You can say that about anything. Life is frustrating. Just ask Pro Guy. And isn’t losing your cool a time-honored golf thing? And why Grayson Murray snapped a club over his knee at the U. S. Open?)
Watch where you stand. (Again, you could say this to anyone. The dairyman in a field of cowpies. The construction gal standing on a cross beam 10 stories up.)
Respect the green. (Something to do with replacing divots. Not tracking sand. Reduce slow play. Tread lightly. Don’t compromise the integrity of the hole. Something-something about the flag.)
By now we’d used up all the time we’d allotted for golf and we hadn’t even left the Pro Shop. I had mentally checked out (attention span of a gnat), Glenn’s enthusiasm was gone, and we were itching to get on the trail.
With hiking you don’t need lessons, practice, equipment, the right shoes, and a tee time. Wait, I take that back. You do need the right shoes. Also wasn’t it Mark Twain who said: Golf is a good walk spoiled.
And look how happy we’ll make Pro Guy if we bail. His mask will crinkle up in a huge grin.
You see what comes next, right? Maybe some other day we’ll give golf a whirl, but we’ll take Gary Becher with us. Gary knows what to do and best of all he has a sense of humor.
We bid farewell to Pro Shop Guy whose mask flutters (sigh of relief?).
The Upstory 