A lot of the Ashuelot

 A couple years ago, before nasty horrible viruses were attacking us from every direction, I played a round at the lovely Bretwood Golf course in Keene, NH. It's a really nice course, actually two courses in one, thirty-six holes winding around a former dairy farm, with the scenic Ashuelot River meandering around the course, providing ample opportunity for lost golf balls as well as adorable little covered bridges through which to drive your golf cart. 

I played with two new friends I had made here at the hotel, Eric and Lucy (they call themselves Lucy and Ricky, ha ha.) They live in Florida and every year they come up to play golf in Vermont for a month or so, staying at the super-luxe Hampton Inn while they're here, going through their Hilton Honors points, of which they have enough to stay for free for the whole month. We got to talking during their stay, lovely people, really, ex-New-Yorkers, music lovers, funny and gentle people. And horrendous golfers, as I found out. Eric's not bad, and I'm sure used to be better (they're both in their mid-70's) but Lucy is really bad. They're so cute, though, they don't give a hoot how bad they are, they just love playing together and having fun. Eric confided to me that it's really kept them together, given their marriage some glue in their retirement. 

So we chatted much about golf and courses in the area, and one day they asked if I'd like to join them for a round. Which they don't do much; with some self-awareness of their bad-golfiness, they're loathe to spend an afternoon with someone who would be impatient or make them feel bad for being so bad. I guess I seemed harmless enough, so we met one fine day and drove over to Keene. 

When they decide to play a round of golf, they really prepare and take it most seriously; not the game so much as the afternoon together. Their car was loaded with golf clubs, coolers, bags of sandwiches, energy bars, beverages, a mariachi band and a couple of surfboards, just in case.  We got in our respective carts, theirs weighed down with supplies, mine a bit lonely but enthusiastic for a nice day of golf. 

I'm not going to go hole-by-hole here because I don't remember the details of thecourse or the round well enough, but it was one of the most pleasant times I've had on the links. Lucy was really a bad-golfer. Her maximum shot was about 50 yards. She wound up like Goose Gossage, wiggled her head around in circles and took a massive swipe at the poor ball and it bounced gamely a little distance, with Eric exclaiming "nice shot!" They were both quite vocal about what an awesome and amazing golfer I am, with a beautiful swing, which made me love them like family and hope that they live forever.  

So we followed the Ashuelot a lot, drove through the bridges, got collectively annoyed at a singleton playing behind us who kept lobbing balls right on our tails as we made our way through a couple of holes. We invited him to play through and he grumped and grumbled and looked ever so superior, and so we shot him in the head with the handy Glock 9mm that Lucy and Ricky had stashed in one of their coolers (they thought of everything.) So that was fun. 

The other thing that happened during that round, and the thing that motivated me to write this little entry in my account of my golf journey, was that somewhere, I think on the 13th, I misplaced my 3-wood. Not sure how, but the next time I went to play it was nowhere to be seen. Which upset me, because I had had some success with that club. Not as it was intended to function, mind you, as a "fairway wood" which I guess you're technically supposed to use on the fairway, but as a club off the tee. For some reason I was able to hit it straighter and longer than my driver, and I had employed it quite a bit. (The driver is, of course, the bane of my existance, as it is for many bad-golfers like me. It somehow consistently awakens the ball magnets installed in courses on the right side of every fairway which make my ball slice olympically off to the right, no matter what I do.) But the ball magnet somehow wasn't activated by my fairway "wood," and I was sad that I lost it. I thought many a time about calling the course and asking if they had found my club, but just never got around to it, and last season I somehow never made it over to Bretwood to play and recover my lost club. 

So I went on Dick's Sporting Goods the other day and searched for a 3-wood of the brand I have, which is Top-Flite (couldn't they just have spelled it right? Top-Flight is just as good,) and how about that, there's my club for only $49.99! Not bad! So I bought it, as a little early birthday present to myself. Woo-hoo! Now I'll be a good-golfer! If I'd wanted, I could have spent upwards of $300 on a Titleist or some such, but why? I read somewhere that even bad-golfers should use the best clubs and top equipment, but screw that. Perhaps when I travel someplace sometime I'll rent a set of clubs, which will be of a higher order than Top-Flight, and I'll see if magically I become a good-golfer. I doubt it. 

Anyway, all this just to say that I'm missing golf as I wait patiently for yet another Vermont winter to be over. I've been watching a lot of golf (how amazing is it that there's an entire television channel devoted to our game? I don't see a croquet channel, or a bowling channel) and as always I think I improve as a golfer simply by osmosis by watching Rory and Bryson and Brooks do their thing. 

(As an aside, isn't it curious how each sport has its own style of names? Bryson Dechambeau. Show me a football player named Bryson DeChambeau. Brooks, Justin, Dustin, Justin again a couple of times. Tiger Woods! There are definitely golf names. Just like in baseball. Show me a golfer named Wade Boggs. Or Mookie Betts, or Mookie Wilson, or Dizzy Dean, or PeeWee Reese. Or Pretzel Pezzullo, or perhaps Sugar Cain and Orval Overall. Mike Trout. Rollie Fingers. Dick Pole. Coco Crisp. And football? Meat, Rocky, Tom, Bill, George. Solid, tough names. Or tennis? Roger Federer; sounds like a mid-level food-service corporation.  Pete, Byorn, Vanessa, Monica.)

But I digress. I can't wait for the leaves to turn, to be able to go outside without a hat and parka, to unstore my lightweight short-sleeved shirts. Gonna treat myself to a new pair of golf shoes this year, as well as a pair of golf pants. I just know I'll shave five strokes off my game with real golf pants. 

But more importantly, I'll be outside playing golf. As a teacher, for many years I would bore my students with baseball analogies. Now I bore them with golf imagery instead. Golf is life, right? Challenges, concentration, improvement, focus, laughter, sunlight, oxygen, green grass, puffy white clouds, tiny stubborn white balls; it's all there. 

Final update: Yesterday was my birthday. Finally, 35 years old. Tee-hee. Or as Calvin says,  I'm almost 61. Which is true, of course, just kind of in reverse. For my birthday, my gorgeous and long-suffering wife took me to Dick's Sporting Goods and bought me a brand new pair of golf shoes! Gorgeous Footjoy throwback saddle-shoe style, like I always wanted. They'll take at least 4 strokes off my game, for sure. Check out these babies:  

These shoes, plus my brand new fairway "wood," plus two dozen new, white, dimpled, super-distance Top-[Flight] golf balls, adds up to me being ready for the season to start! Woo-hoo! My fantasy this year, call it a goal, is to break 90. Yes! I can do it! I already flirt with breaking 100 just about every time I go out, so it's a matter of better course management and eliminating the 3-putt from my vocabulary, and I'm there. Bogey golf puts me at 89. I can do that. I can certainly try. ("Try not.  Do, or do not. There is no try.")  

Leaving you with Yoda's wisdom, I sign off for a while until this cursed snow melts, grass turns green, bunkers dry out, carts are fueled and we hit the links for this brand new season. 

Hit 'em straight!