Bad Golfer

 Feeling a bit restless, and bored with playing the same old course week after week, I got in my luxury 2011 Nissan Sentra and drove up the highway to the fantabulous, wonderful Bellows Falls Country Club  for what turned out to be one of the most enjoyable rounds I've played this year.  Ah, Bellows Falls. Consistently listed in the top 10 Most Mediocre Towns of the United States, it's truly an odd little village. It doesn't know if it's Bellows Falls or Rockingham, first of all, and the town itself has a similarly schitzo personality; the lovely tree-lined streets with handsome old Victorian houses hide a decades-long festering drug problem, crime is high, domestic violence is the town hobby, and a lingering morose,  apologetic air hangs over the entire village. Not as big or self-important as Brattleboro, 30 miles to the south, Bellows Falls just takes up space that might be better devoted to maple trees and fields.  Even the town center is undecided. A single...

 Today, oh joy, oh rapture, I finally had a buddy to play with on the course! Woo-hoo! Sad and pitiful as it may sound, I've played all my rounds this season all by my lonesome. It's not that I don't have any friends, thought I don't, really, but most of the few stalwart and long-suffering friends I do have are not golfers But today my old pal Calvin, who lives in faraway Concord, NH, had an appointment here in Brattleboro (it was with his shrink cuz he's crazy as a three-dollar bill) and he had time to play a quick round before he had a showing of a house to do back home. He's something of a real-estate magnate there in central New Hampshire; Concord's DJT, if you will, though there the similarity most certainly ends.  Calvin and I were roommates at Ithaca College, back in the mid-17th century, and we remain very close. A few years back when I was going through a particularly difficult time in my life, he somehow got wind of it and called me, saying "y...

 For those unfamiliar with the old musicians' joke, it goes something like this:  "How do you get to Carnagie Hall?"  "Practice, practice, practice!" So today I practiced. Perhaps Carnegie isn't my goal here, after all I actually  have, in my life, performed in Carnegie Hall, twice. Plus several times in the little dinky Carnegie Recital Hall next door. And it's as wonderful as they say. So my practice wasn't to get the the big stage, but to avoid total and complete embarrassment in my round that I'll play with my good buddie and former college roommate, Calvin, later today. (It's 5:23 am right now, I'm working the overnight again, and I'll get a whopping 4.5 hours of sleep before I hit the links. I'm thinking that will be good, since I'll be so sleepy and bleary I won't be able to think, and as I've learned in life, the less you think the better, just about always.  Anyway, I toodled to the course today, started out o...

 I should preface this by saying that I worked really hard to prepare for this round. I was sick and tired of playing badly after my last round (not the dream sequence one) so I was determined to practice before shelling out for another futile flaying on the course. So, Carnagie Hall in mind, I practiced, practiced, practiced. Went to the range twice, spent a couple of hours on the practice green perfecting my chipping and sand wedge, even put in some work from the practice sand trap, giving it a full swing just like the pros. And I have to say, I did some productive work.  Golf is just stupid hard. So many things to think about, probably more than in any other sport. I mean, look at soccer: kick the bouncy ball. Knock it with your head if you have a high pain threshold. When you get a chance, kick it into the goal, a large rectangle guarded by one relatively small human. And all you have to do is kick one or two of those goals and your team will probably win. How about tennis...

My first experiences with golf were when I was a teenager and my Dad, Norman, (above) dragged me out to the course in a vain attempt to get me interested in the game. He tried, bless him, but it never did really catch on. I was the opposite of athletic when I was in high school, and I wasn't, if I'm honest, that enthusiastic about going out on the course with my old man, but it was in my interest to try and make him happy, so along I trotted, trying my very best to keep that left arm straight and my head down. My principal memories of those outings are once when Dad hit a chickadee with his tee shot on what is now the 16rh hole (it was eight in those days). We got a good guffaw at him getting a birdie. Ha ha. I also remember despising what was then the fourth hole, the present-day steep Mt. Mckinley 11th. I still despise that hole and have never scored well on it. Quite the opposite, it's often the disaster of my round.  We played a few times since then, once we went to the...