own backyard. Indeed, lots of golf nuts are installing regulation putting
greens in their backyards.
I practice putting in the house, using an electric putting hole gadget my son gave me that spits the balls back. My cats love
to chase my putts and bat them about, and frankly are as good at getting them in the hole as I am. I’m getting better as I
learn to read the break on the hardwood floors in our 107-year-old house.
On vacations, we hold chipping and driving contests in the yard. We try to chip balls about fifty feet into swimming pool
tubes we’ve scattered about. Our friend Pam won the contest and the six-pack by chipping one into a bucket! Magnificent shot.
At some point we take aim at the swimming pool itself, although this always results in a certain amount of collateral damage
to the house, the wooden fence, the garden, and the patio furniture—in part, because we’re drunk. I am quite good at chipping
balls into the pool; hitting balls into water just seems to come naturally to me.
We also hit drives toward the bay, endangering beach-goers, protected wetlands, egrets, and neighboring homes. It also ruins
the lawn as we take toupee-sized divots out of the yard. The inlet and marsh is only about 150 yards out, so a golf ball splashdown
is good, but a shot onto the beach (some 200 to 250 yards away) that hits an umbrella or scatters sunbathers is excellent.
For this we use the five-for-a-dollar “previously owned” balls from a stand next to the local course. Around Easter every
year we have a used golf ball hunt in the thorny thickets extending from the edge of our yard to the inlet.
After Jody receives a nice set of clubs for her birthday (even though she’s never played) we decide to inaugurate them at
another driving range on a cool spring day. This is right after Liz’s golf class and I’m most eager to find out just how much
my game’s improved.
Easier said than done here in golf-crazed suburbia. But as dusk settles, spaces do finally begin to open up. I see another
novice put a token into the ball machine, fail to place the basket directly under the spout, and the cascading golf balls
roll everywhere. I am secretly pleased, beginning to think that maybe for once I won’t look like the fool of the day.
There is no privacy. But to my great joy I don’t seem to need it so much anymore. The lessons seem to have helped. My 7- and
9-iron shots are going straighter, some even landing on the greens at fifty and a hundred yards! Of course they roll off the
greens, in shots that TV commentators would lament, and true there are no sand traps here, but for me this is spectacular.
And, I seem to be hitting fewer off the sideboards. Thank you, Liz.
My driving, however, remains as poor as ever. My irons are going straighter and just as far as my driver shots. My drives
are short—even with a titanium driver!—and thickly sliced. And, I still can’t hit the damned guy in the ball retrieval cart
(there is no People for the Ethical Treatment of People). Once the ball retrieval cart went by just five feet in front of
my tee and it was tempting, believe me.
There is a certain amount of chuckling coming from observers on benches behind us, but I choose to believe they are watching
their awful friend next to me. It’s the guy who spilled the balls, and who is now hitting some of them as little as three
feet off the tee. Dribblers. And God bless him.
6
Golf Wars Weaponry
M aybe it’s my socks.
“Could very well be,” suggested the helpful salesman … of socks. Maybe it is. Maybe my golf game sucks because of bad socks.
As Americans, we have a deep and abiding faith in, tend to place all of our hopes and dreams for the future in … technology.
We the people do further believe that stuff we buy will make our lives better and happier. And although golfers are among
the best educated of any sportsmen and -women, they have this weakness, this addiction,
greens in their backyards.
I practice putting in the house, using an electric putting hole gadget my son gave me that spits the balls back. My cats love
to chase my putts and bat them about, and frankly are as good at getting them in the hole as I am. I’m getting better as I
learn to read the break on the hardwood floors in our 107-year-old house.
On vacations, we hold chipping and driving contests in the yard. We try to chip balls about fifty feet into swimming pool
tubes we’ve scattered about. Our friend Pam won the contest and the six-pack by chipping one into a bucket! Magnificent shot.
At some point we take aim at the swimming pool itself, although this always results in a certain amount of collateral damage
to the house, the wooden fence, the garden, and the patio furniture—in part, because we’re drunk. I am quite good at chipping
balls into the pool; hitting balls into water just seems to come naturally to me.
We also hit drives toward the bay, endangering beach-goers, protected wetlands, egrets, and neighboring homes. It also ruins
the lawn as we take toupee-sized divots out of the yard. The inlet and marsh is only about 150 yards out, so a golf ball splashdown
is good, but a shot onto the beach (some 200 to 250 yards away) that hits an umbrella or scatters sunbathers is excellent.
For this we use the five-for-a-dollar “previously owned” balls from a stand next to the local course. Around Easter every
year we have a used golf ball hunt in the thorny thickets extending from the edge of our yard to the inlet.
After Jody receives a nice set of clubs for her birthday (even though she’s never played) we decide to inaugurate them at
another driving range on a cool spring day. This is right after Liz’s golf class and I’m most eager to find out just how much
my game’s improved.
Easier said than done here in golf-crazed suburbia. But as dusk settles, spaces do finally begin to open up. I see another
novice put a token into the ball machine, fail to place the basket directly under the spout, and the cascading golf balls
roll everywhere. I am secretly pleased, beginning to think that maybe for once I won’t look like the fool of the day.
There is no privacy. But to my great joy I don’t seem to need it so much anymore. The lessons seem to have helped. My 7- and
9-iron shots are going straighter, some even landing on the greens at fifty and a hundred yards! Of course they roll off the
greens, in shots that TV commentators would lament, and true there are no sand traps here, but for me this is spectacular.
And, I seem to be hitting fewer off the sideboards. Thank you, Liz.
My driving, however, remains as poor as ever. My irons are going straighter and just as far as my driver shots. My drives
are short—even with a titanium driver!—and thickly sliced. And, I still can’t hit the damned guy in the ball retrieval cart
(there is no People for the Ethical Treatment of People). Once the ball retrieval cart went by just five feet in front of
my tee and it was tempting, believe me.
There is a certain amount of chuckling coming from observers on benches behind us, but I choose to believe they are watching
their awful friend next to me. It’s the guy who spilled the balls, and who is now hitting some of them as little as three
feet off the tee. Dribblers. And God bless him.
6
Golf Wars Weaponry
M aybe it’s my socks.
“Could very well be,” suggested the helpful salesman … of socks. Maybe it is. Maybe my golf game sucks because of bad socks.
As Americans, we have a deep and abiding faith in, tend to place all of our hopes and dreams for the future in … technology.
We the people do further believe that stuff we buy will make our lives better and happier. And although golfers are among
the best educated of any sportsmen and -women, they have this weakness, this addiction,
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