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Fore!

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Photo: gal2.org/David July
Photo: gal2.org/David July

Today’s post comes from perennial sophomore Bubby Spamden.

Hey Mr. C.!,

I found out the other day that my whole generation has already turned its back on golf as a sport. That was interesting news to me, because I really had no idea golf still existed!

I mean, I’ve noticed when we pass by some of the courses in town that there are people out there driving little carts around on the grass, and that looks kind of cool except the carts go too slow and they don’t have big enough wheels. I’d want something more powerful and off-road. But still, driving a golf buggy could be fun for a while – maybe 15 minutes. I hear out in places like Arizona there are communities where people drive golf carts everywhere.

I don’t think I have the patience for that.

I asked my dad about golf and he said “The sport is doomed” because it’s too hard to learn, too expensive to play, it takes too long to get through a round, and all the people who love it are old and they wear funny clothes.”

That seemed pretty negative for a guy who has played golf all my life. So I asked him why he likes the game and he said he likes it because it’s a way for him to be with his friends where he can talk as much or as little as he wants. Because golfers have this “thing” about noise, it’s OK for a bunch of them to be together and still be quiet.

It made me think of when I’m with my friends and we all sit in the same room and focus on our phones instead of each other. And come to think of it, some of us wear funny clothes, too. So I guess I’m already doing something that’s kind of like golf and I didn’t even know

But at least what I do is cheaper. If you don’t count the cost of my data plan.

There’s one thing my dad told me that made golf seem like it might actually be worthwhile – at some of the courses in the summertime they have these cute girls who drive around selling food and beverages, including beer. For the most part the golfer guys are so old they really shouldn’t be flirting with the girls, but some of them do anyway. They get to be pretty heavy tippers out on the course, even though they’re not that way in the normal world. Kinda creepy. And then a lot of them buy beers and keep on driving their golf carts, which totally adds up to drinking and driving and not getting in trouble for it, which is something you can’t do anywhere else.

Depending on how many beers they have, they might also turn into heavy tippers when they go around a corner too fast. Golf can be dangerous.

Anyway, I asked my dad if I should take up the game, and you know what he said? This floored me. He said “No, look at you. A high school sophomore? You’re too old to start now. You’ll never be any good at it.”

He’s NEVER said anything like that before – it’s the first time I’ve ever been told I’m too old start something! A milestone for me – yay! Finally – an excuse for not being an achiever. I feel so grown up, I’m starting to have regrets about having lived so much of my life already – and all the stuff that’s passed me by.

I missed out on golf!

Your pal,
Bubby

If you could master any sport, which one would it be?

49 thoughts on “Fore!”

  1. Good morning. I have very little interest in participating in sports these days. My Dad liked golf and wanted me to play, but I never did. There is still a chance I might give it a try. Probably the sport that I would enjoy the most would be basketball. Maybe I should join an older guys basketball league.

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  2. I was a golfer once, very briefly. I quit the sport because I developed a hitch in my swing that caused me to spray golf balls at unbelievably acute angles, making me a threat to anyone in my party. I never actually hit a ball into anyone standing behind me, but I came close. People standing to my right or left learned that they were at great hazard of being beaned by a dimpled ball.

    To address the question: it would be a lovely thing to master fly fishing for trout. I enjoyed that sport for about forty years, but I was nowhere near being a master of it. At least my fly fishing didn’t threaten the lives of my partners, and I was not much of a threat to the trout.

    Goodbye friends. I fly to Portland in a few hours. I will have a week with my daughter and grandson, and I suspect I will be able to find candy in Liam’s ears. I’m not much more of a magician than a golfer, but even people as clumsy as I can usually fool a three-year-old. I’ll be thinking of you all every day.

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  3. golf is a favorite of mine. i have spent many hours getting the problems i have with all aspects of the game to become part of my nature. i guess it was 30 or 35 years ago i decided to back off and make it a fun sport. if you want to be good at golf you need to practice a couple times a week. a quick round of golf is 2 hours plus travel to and from and abeer afterward. 4 hours for a quickie and thats only 9 holes. 18 is the real deal and thats 4+ hours add travel time and in a 4 hour round you need a sandwich or if its a late round a bit of dinner. at one point a wonderful golf course bout 30 minutes south of the cities offered a great membership program with all the gold and carts you could squeeze in for 300 bucks of something like that. i signe up with about 20 friends and they all made use of it. i got out 15 or 20 times which seemed like a lot to me. it kind of pointed out that i wasnt in the proper golf state of mind. the guys who i joined up with all were real serious about golf are are to this day. every weekend and golf vacations and its a big deal for them. i loved wearing the funny clothes. my girlfriend at the time told me i couldnt possibly be serious about wearing white shoes and i laughed and said that in goldf everyone wears white shoes. today its changed a bit. gold clothes are a bit more like tennis shoes today
    sports are a wonderful thing and i was a baseball football wrestling guy in school basketball for fun outdfoor sports like fishing and hiking were favorites. i just had a friend in for the reunion and she is a serious climber person. my sister used to be a climber and a canoe person and i like kayaking and canoeing and hiking. like so much else in life i am a jack of all sports and a master of none.
    oh the punchline on my golf game is i dont allow score to be kept in my rounds with my kids. they get too competitive and if we just get the last shot done and try to do our best on the next one that works better than feeling bad about screwing up your score with that last blown hole. i decided to play mediocre golf on nice occasions once or twice a year rather than paly twice or three times a week and forgo the required in order to do that.
    my kids baseball team got a kick out of my antique baseball glove. geeze its just from the 60’s

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  4. Fencing. I wish I could get really good at fencing. I took lessons for a while and loved it. I’m not very competitive, so I don’t know how far I could really get in the sport, but I liked the strategy of it. I liked that it was a rare sport that required coordination without necessarily “hand-eye” coordination because the fencing mask blurred the world just enough that you have to rely on “feel” as much as what you can actually see. It becomes sort of zen-like – a “use the force” sort of thing – to know where your opponent’s blade is or where it might be moving so you can avoid it, block it, and get your blade to your opponent to get a touch. Also, how friendly – you get a “touch.” It’s a game of speed without being a game where you have to be a fast runner. If only my knees wouldn’t fuss at me so…

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  5. One of these days I will finally sign up for a belly-dancing class with Community Ed. I’ve always wanted to do that…. still waiting to find time and money!

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    1. youtube belly dancing available for starters for free ill betcha. youtube is amazing at classes
      also while on the subject edx.org is a wowser for those with a bit of time and are up to a challange. i signed up for one on cooking that started a while ago but allows you to join in.
      kind of the opposite of sports but what the heck
      https://www.edx.org/

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      2. That has to be one of a series of videos, tim. It ends rather abruptly. You go for it, vs, It looks like a good workout. I’m betting that your dogs and cat won’t care what you look like.

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  6. Even after dodging all of Dale’s well-deserved potshots at the great game of golf (because it is a silly paradox of stupid game/greatest game ever; time-sucker/peaceful, relaxing decompression time; obsessive formality and rule compliance/ beer-swilling, trash-talking, on-course peeing, garish clothes weekend recreation), it’s still the sport I’d love to master. Second on the list would be to become a Cy Young Award-winning baseball pitcher.

    Chris in Owatonna

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    1. my kid was apitcher and it sure was fun living through him for a couple of years. he is out of raeal sports but is proud to be the sports guy on all his itermural teams and the shooter on his basketball team the receiver on his football team and the hitter fielder on his baseball teams. he is a bit competitive at golf, pool, fishing, shuffleboard darts. ah sports

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      1. yeah, I loved being a sports kid. Each season a new sport, just a great way to move the body, compete, make friends, never got boring or burned out because we didn’t specialize back in the 60s and 70s.

        Chris

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        1. i got sucked out of it in the 70’s when hair became an issue. the jocks couldnt get over a freak wanting to play sports. i kicked ass in wrestling but they wouldnt let me compete in the meets without a haircut. baseball and football were worse. lucky for me the boys called me up to be a rock star. i liked that even better than sports. talk about being on stage. in sports you get your moment to shine. in front of the microphone the evening is your moment to shine.

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        4. the one guy i couldnt beat had three big brothers that were all state champs and they taught him all the leg lock moves. he would start the match by getting you down then wrap his legs through yours and roll you over and figure out how to knock you off your arms so he could pin you. the kicking action he used to knock you down so he could wrap you up was crazy. norm cherry i remember you well

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        5. In HS phy ed we had wrestling for a few classes. I was paired against a kid my weight but who was much stronger than me (not hard to do, I didn’t know about weight training back then, could barely do a chin up). It was the longest, hardest, most exhausting 3 minutes (I think) of my life! Since then, I’ve always believed school wrestlers are some of the most fit athletes I’ve ever encountered. They’ll always have my respect.

          Chris

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  7. A 34 year old man in our town was just arrested for armed robbery of a tiny bank in the eastern part of the state. He was described as a former football standout at our local college. I find it interesting that they never describe people in such circumstances as former bassoon virtuoso or first tenor.

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      3. wow man i like knew some dudes who played heavy ass guitars that would steal a bottle of jack daniels every time my back was turned. those dudes could be headliners for sure if they were in your part of the world. do they do music in north dakaota other than the sons of the pioneers?

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  8. Horseback riding. I’ve been on a horse only once in my life while in college, and had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do, and the horse knew it. She stopped to munch on every shrub that looked remotely edible, and took off like a bat out of hell whenever we approached a low hanging branch on the trail. How I’d love to be able to ride a horse with poise and confidence. I don’t envision me jumping or anything fancy like that, just riding into the sunset in perfect harmony with a nice horse.

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    1. I know nothing about riding horse as was proven when I rode on a rented horse and it decided to lay down. Fortunately the horse was moving very slowly and I was able to get out of the saddle before horse rolled over on it’s side.

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    1. ive got a daughter who is doing dance after wishing for a couple years she could fit it in. maybe belly dancing could be incorporated into her program with youtube cosurses

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    1. Edith, I used to phantasize about ice skating and being able to make all those graceful jumps. Alas, I’ve long since given up those dreams. Not even Steve Goodman’s “Old smoothies” are within reach anymore.

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  11. In the past I have managed to do okay at bowling. Maybe I could develop enough skill to hang out with some guys like the bowling buddies of The Dude in The Big Lebowski.

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  12. I’m with the ice skater wannabees. Could do one little jump back in the day, and would have loved to get better. Lessons weren’t in the picture in Marshalltown IA, but if I were in my twenties again…

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  13. I once competed on a jigsaw puzzle team in the St. Paul Winter Carnival Jigsaw Puzzle Contest. We didn’t win. Perhaps with enough training, though….there’s always next year, right?

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    1. I subbed on one of those puzzle teams a number of years ago. I didn’t help much to bring home the prize. The rest of them had actually practiced a bit (how do you practice? just do a lot of puzzles, I s’pose)

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  14. tarzan swings count?
    a while back i used to lift weights. its amazing how good that works and how good it makes you feel. weight lifting is a thing to aspire to. ive almost got myself talked into it

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