I love this game
04/10/2001
Codding Home / Sports Channel / Bullz-Eye Home
It was 70 degrees this weekend in Cleveland, which means the season has officially begun. No, I'm not talking about baseball -- the baseball gods don't care if it's 10-below; if it's April and there's no snow or rain, the boys will play.
No, 70 degrees and sun means it's time to drag the golf clubs out of the closet, throw 'em in the trunk, grab a case of beer and a few buddies and head out to the golf course.
Personally, I've only been golfing now for about five or six years and I'm still four wins and a golf game away from my first career Grand Slam, but I love it nonetheless. Hey, Tiger may have a better swing than me -- not to mention a better putting stroke, a better short game, more PGA tour victories (surprisingly, I'm still looking for my first), more endorsement deals (again, still waiting... ) and a hell of a lot more money -- but I'd be willing to bet my hundreds of dollars against his hundreds of millions that I can polish off more beers in a round than he can.
Incidentally, my gut agrees.
Now that's not to say I don't want to be a better golfer -- trust me, my competitive streak runs very deep. But there's so much more to golf than your actual score, and that's the beauty of the game. It doesn't matter that I routinely reach triple digits in a round of 18, or that the closest thing I see to a birdie is when I flip off one of my friends who finds my tee shot on the third hole amusing. Just playing the game is what counts, at least to us weekend warriors.
Think of it this way: If you suck at baseball, your teammates ignore you and ride the pine so you can't actually affect the outcome of the game. Same with basketball. In football, you suck... you die -- slow, uncoordinated punt returners and wide receivers last about as long in a football game as Rosie O'Donnell would at an NRA convention.
But golf is different. It doesn't matter if you consistently find the fairway or the trees off the tee -- you can still play because, chances are, the guys you choose to play with are just as good (or bad) as you. Plus, unless you're playing in a scramble of some sort, your poor play only affects your score, meaning you don't have any teammates to piss off.
I know what I'm talking about. If I shoot 48 through nine holes, I consider it a good day. I've got a slice O.J. Simpson would be proud of, and I hit my 7 iron about as long as my 3 iron. But I still love to play, because every so often I'll sink a 30-foot putt, or I'll reach in two on a par-4, or (and this maybe happens once or twice a round) I'll somehow manage to hit a tee shot that doesn't slice from one edge of the fairway to the other.
Here's a perfect example: Before playing a round with one of my friends last summer, I bought a box of balls at the pro shop, emptied two or three of the sleeves into my bag and put another three balls in my pocket. The first hole on this course is a par-4 with a slight dogleg to the right. I teed up one of my new balls, took one or two practice swings and ripped a drive... that obviously took a 90-degree turn into the woods along the right side of the fairway. Because it was the first hole and there wasn't anyone waiting behind us, I teed up the second of three balls, took a few more practice swings, trying to correct my uncorrectable slice, and again sent the ball screaming into the woods. Third ball, two more practice swings, some unprintable words of hostility... same result. Three balls, three tee shots, all lost deep in the woods. In hindsight, I should have just walked out of the pro shop, opened the box of balls I had just bought, taken out that first sleeve and chucked it into the woods, then taken a drop and moved on from there. Would have saved me the time and embarrassment of sending those three balls out of bounds, one by one.
Needless to say, finding the trees with your first three swings isn't the best way to start a round, but I settled down a bit throughout the rest of the game. And on the ninth hole, I followed a semi-straight drive with a decent second shot, but then rolled my third shot off the green and onto the fringe, about 45 feet from the hole. I pulled out my trusty 7-iron, about the only club I actually still have a friendly relationship with, and hit the perfect chip, rolling the ball right into the heart of the hole for a par. It had to be one of the best shots of my miserable golf career, and as we were walking back toward the car I wasn't thinking about those first three balls that wound up somewhere near Columbus. Instead, all I could think about was that final chip, a shot that any player on any level would be proud of.
And there it is. That's what makes golf great. It's not necessarily your score at the end of the round, or how much money you can take from your buddies, or even how many strokes you cut off your scorecard from April to October. Sure, the goal of going out there every weekend is to continually improve your game -- I hate recording a six on a par-3 just as much as anyone. And taking $50 bucks from your friends is a definite plus. But the thing I love about golf is, no matter how many times you watch that brand new ball take a sharp right into the trees or the nearest lake, you know that your next shot could be the magical one that overshadows all those wicked slices and aggravating worm burners. Just one 35-foot birdie putt can erase the memory of that missed tap-in two holes earlier.
I'm not trying to romanticize the game of golf, but there are some things that make it great, even if the golfer isn't. You can carry on a full conversation with the guys you're playing with. Try doing that in basketball. Hell, you can have a few drinks on the course too. I dare you to drink a six-pack and then play an entire hockey game.
Ah yes, golf. The perfect game for those out-of-shape athletes who prefer walking to running and beer bottles over water bottles. I love it.
And I'd love it even more if I could lose that damn slice.
In the Bullz-Eye
The Boston Celtics. With the NBA season winding down, the Celtics find themselves 2.5 games behind the Indiana Pacers for the eighth and final spot in the Eastern Conference playoffs. Boston has four more games to play, three of which are at home against Miami (46-30) on April 11, New Jersey (26-52) on April 15 and Charlotte (42-36) on the 18th, and then one big one on the road against the Pacers on April 13. Meanwhile, Indiana has three home games (New York, Boston and Philadelphia) and two road games (Chicago and Cleveland) remaining. If the Celtics can't win that head-to-head match up in Indiana on the 13th, Isiah Thomas, Reggie Miller and Jalen Rose can probably book their plane tickets for an opening-round playoff series against the 76ers.