Essay on Golf
Lately, I came to understand that golf has been important in my life. I played golf from an early age, and then a couple of years ago lost interest. Golf became less satisfying as my age affected shots, balls didn’t go as far or as straight, putts harder to read.
I played 25 cent junior golf when I was nine years old on Waveland Golf Course, in Des Moines, Iowa. Now my grandson plays there for 5 dollars in the, Youth on Course, junior golf program. I played golf on some of the top courses in the country, Mexico and Canada—cow pasture courses and ones right out of Golf Magazine, with friends and the love of my life. I played windy rounds in Popu, Hawaii, green treed mountain ones in Idaho and Canada, replete with charging moose and one on the loose, and even a large bull Elk that claimed my ball in Banf, British Columbia. There was Florida golf with alligators, too. The toughest course I played was Sand Hills Golf Club, Mullen, Nebraska, and the second most difficult, was Bayonet Fort Orb Army course, Carme, California, with its tight fairways and crowned greens. I played exclusive country club courses in Idaho, Washington D.C., California, and Arizona. Many of the courses I played were ranked number one in Golf Digest at the time.
As a young boy, I played with an old set of rummage sale woods and irons. My first real set I bought from an acquaintance – Tommy Armor persimmon woods and copper faced irons. I used to get the woods refinished at Des Moines Golf and the last time, the head pro, J.D. Turner, said my woods were valuable to tour players and could fetch a good price. How cool is that? Of course, they could only get more valuable, right? Nope. Shortly after that, metal drivers flooded the market and the rest is history.
Over the years I have played most of my rounds on three courses.
Waveland Golf Course is one of the oldest golf courses in the country, commissioned over 124 years ago. In my youth, the club house displayed pictures of Elk herds on the golf course, once native to Iowa. I played there on the rolling hills, and deep-wooded lined fairways before the freeway carved up the land and the course was modified to its current design. Many of the holes are still the same. In my youth we hunted for golf balls deep in the woods disregarding all the warnings of poison ivy warning (I was never infected). It was a popular place for sledding in the winter and still is for the grandkids. My burial site is a pitching wedge away from the 9th fairway across University Avenue.
Hyperion Golf Club. When I stated showing some career success we joined Hyperion Field Club. I raised a family there. My kids played in the junior golf, tennis and swimming programs. Some might say it was a kid-sitting service. At the end of the month, I dreaded the Country Club bill that came in a shoe box with all the receipts for merchandise, beverages, lunches and snacks. As for my golf there, I played every morning before I went to work. My best memory was shooting 68. At the time, the third ranked course in Iowa.
Coeur d’Alene Public. When we moved to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, I played in the morning on the Coeur d’Alene Golf course and in the summer was still the first one in the office. The course was characterized by narrow majestic tree-lined fairways. My first hole-in-one was on hole number two—129-yard 9 iron. My second hole in one was also in north Idaho, on Blackrock Golf Course, an exclusive private course I could never have afforded to join. I made the shot on hole seven—158-yard 7iron. Blackrock was voted Golf Digest’s Best New Private Course of 2003. The Golf Club at Black Rock has remained in Golf Digest’s Top 100 Golf Courses since opening in 2003.
Arizona Traditions. Arizona Traditions, the course I play today, is where I play most of my rounds. The course doesn’t show any of the features of the great courses I have played. Perhaps the kindest thing I can say about Arizona Traditions is that it is a good layout, but it ranks low in quality of greens and fairways, due, in part, to a lack of management and motivation. The course gets plenty of play without offering a quality golf experience, so there is little incentive to make improvements. Most importantly, it fulfills an important element of what attracts me to golf—friendships.
I scored my third hole-in-one on Arizona Traditions – hole 17 – 129 year – 9 iron. This one came with a story. The play was slow and the foursome behind us were waiting for us to t-off (members of our larger group of golfers). A member of my foursome preceded me, and clear to everyone knocked it in the hole. It was his ninth hole-in-one. I played next, and in the celebration that was still swirling around the last shot I hit mine stiff. I thought it had a chance to go in, but recognized there was a possibility it could be hiding behind the flag, and given the celebration didn’t say anything. One of my playing partners arrived at the green first and announced, “There’s two balls in there.” The odds of that are 1 in 156 million. I guess that tops the odds of drawing my Royal Flush in spades when I was in the Navy, which is, 1 in 31,000.
Golf was important enough that after my broken neck career delaying accident, we wanted to move to Rogue River, Oregon, and looked for property by the airport to build a Nevada Bob’s Discount Golf Store and driving range. The Nevada Bob’s Portland franchisee, who I negotiated with, in the end said he was going independent and I got cold feet. I even looked at buying an Ace Hardware Store in Rogue River, Oregon. Definitely the deals you don’t make sometimes are your best ones. So why was golf important to me?
Fascination was what hooked me on playing golf, but it was something else that prevailed and brought me back to the game.
First, I think it started with fascination. You begin playing golf following instructions on how to play. As you approach the ball, mindlessly set your feet just the right distance apart, knees bent, loose grip not too strong or too weak, square the clubface, waggle, rotate hips and shoulders, at the top of your swing hinge your wrists naturally, unwind your hips and shift your weight, uncoil and unleash the club toward the ball and remember, but do the remembering without thinking. Those are just the highlights of what you need to know but explains why golf may be the hardest game to master. Then behind the complexities of physical mechanics, and the mental control required, you are on you own, solely inescapably accountable.
Then it happens, viola, the most complicated thing in sports, directing a golf ball for distance and accuracy, you strike the ball on the club face and watch the four to six seconds of flight fulfill expectations and sear into your memory a feeling you strive to duplicate over and over until the last time you play the game. And, every time you repeat the feat it compounds, multiplies and ignites the emotional engine that consolidates and deepens the feeling.
Not everybody is so fascinated, but for the many, one instance of fascination draws together and attaches to the peacefulness of plush green grass, trees, blue sky, peace and friendship. The game of golf is always the same—green grass, a small round ball, and clubs. Not all shots in life go where you want them, off the fairway, in a divot, or behind a tree but you play it where it lies. Such is life. It’s played with friends who take turns, don’t talk when they shouldn’t, follow the rules, and when a shot is being made don’t interrupt. They say good shot when deserved and turn away when you shank it. They help you find your ball when it is lost. The gentleman golfer doesn’t ask for your score when you play badly but asks when you play well. They laugh at all your jokes. In both golf and friendship, the true value lies not in perfection, but in presence. I returned to golf because of the comradery, the unique language and when you step on the first tee or enter a zone where your worries are off limits.
Golf imitates life. For the most part it’s a gentleman’s game and at times a spiritual one. I played golf for my own reasons because it was simply challenging, in a peaceful green garden and didn’t require teamwork—the outcome was always up to me, with no one to blame or take credit. Professional baseball players say hitting the stationary white ball in the direction and distance you intend is harder than hitting a 90-mile curving fastball.
If golf imitates life, then the people who play aren’t always gentlemanly. Some play angrily, blaming shots on the wind, the pace of play, women on the course, and often their clubs—an embarrassing sight to see grown men with terrible golf swings blame bad golf shots on expensive state-of-the-art clubs. I have walked off the course in the middle of rounds, when a golfer angrily hacks at his ball in a greenside bunker, his face turning so red he is about to explode, and then throws his club helicoptering halfway down the fairway. I was afraid I’d end up carrying him to the clubhouse or have to administer CPR so I left.
When I lost interest in the game a few years ago I began to play pickle ball. After I pulled a calf muscle, had a knee replaced and suffered with plantar fasciitis, I decided purely from a health standpoint that golf was a better option. At the same time, I came to the realization there were things about golf I missed. Sure, I didn’t hit the ball as far, shots weren’t as accurate but I missed one of the most important aspects of the game, the comradery, language, associations and when I cross the borderline to the first tee. I entered a safe place where the truth value lies not in perfection, but in presence.
The best memories in golf live beyond mere fascinations. One instance of fascination draws together and attaches to the peacefulness of plush green grass, trees, blue sky, peace and friendship, stories, lasting memories and friends.
Where do friends come from, anyway? Do they fall out of the sky? Are friends like time utility in economics when a company provides goods or services when they are most needed? Are friendships like physics when atoms are drawn towards other atoms with similar energy composition? I don’t remember how I became friends with Dr. Joe Bujak. I think golf. He is the most humble, most brilliant man I ever met. There is not a man I love and admire as much and count as a friend for life. We played golf on glorious North Idaho mornings on the city course before work. He was Vice President of Medical Affairs of the hospital a mile away and my office was across the street above the cancer center. What started as a mutual interest in golf turned into explorations of the current state and future of healthcare and evolved from there into the mysteries of life itself.
Phi Beta Kappa, Rutgers University, he was the author of several books, in demand as a speaker and consultant, who lectured and published frequently on physician culture and behavior. I could write a book on Joe’s accomplishments but none would matter more than the admiration and love of his patients and the residents he taught. Shakespeare could have turned a phrase to describe him.
A hard-working curious boy from Iowa, I spent my life whispering into the wind, “I don’t understand.” Golf with Joe became an excuse to celebrate life. So often, when we stopped in the middle of the fairway, our conversations started with simple reverent comments about how precious life was and how lucky we were to stand amid tall pines like vertical blinds slanting the early sun. Knocking down any topic, no matter how far-reaching, two men of curiosities and passion, played a game that represented a lifetime of learning that could never be perfect was the perfect exclamation point to the game we were playing. Those were the most contended moments of my life. There was no place on earth I’d rather be. I had found someone with similar interests, often with answers and more questions. Standing in the middle of the fairway with Joe, golf became an afterthought. When he didn’t have the answers, we explored the options together in a sorting-out fashion reserved for poets and great thinkers.
When we moved away, we stayed in touch—he and his wife visited us in Arizona and we visited them in Coeur d’Alene. Then, one day a call came in on my cell phone—the screen announced it was Joe calling. Dread swept over me when the female voice announced, “I am Joe’s daughter. Joe is in a coma.” He was in Dallas lecturing before a group of physicians when he collapsed. He wanted to continue but, wisely the physicians in attendance wouldn’t allow it. He returned to Coeur d’Alene and didn’t pursue it further until he collapsed again and was rushed to the hospital. I feared the worst. His physicians weren’t confident he would recover.
Two weeks later I was playing golf at Trilogy Golf Club with friends from Iowa when a call came in. Again, the screen showed it was Joe, and my heart sank, expecting the worst again. “This is Joe.” Hearing his voice was one of the happiest moments of my life. He was recovering.
Joe was a friend like no other friend for several reasons—his humble brilliance, the personification of, “a man who could walk with kings nor lose the common touch,” his smile and mild demeanor, who had a kind word for everyone. Like one of my story heroes, Roberts of Rogers Rangers, from Northwest Passage, I admired that he could command a lecture hall of the most brilliant physicians and leaders in the country and field the most complex life-unraveling questions and yet stand with me in the middle of a golf fairway and unravel life’s mysteries. I told him I loved him, yet I’m not sure he knew how important he was to me.
That is why I play golf.
