The sound of a good game
Golf is in full swing at my house. No pun intended.
My husband who, at the tender age of fifty, took up the sport three years ago is determined each year to shave a couple of strokes off his game. Combine that with the fact that he is also determined to beat his much younger son at least once in his lifetime and you have the basis for some pretty tense rounds.
I can always tell how the game went between the two of them by two things, how hard the clubs are dropped inside the door when they return from the course and who is first up the stairs to recount the day�s activities.
Ross is the heavy club dropper. If his father bested him on a few too many holes, even if he won the round, he�ll be unhappy. This assures me that the first face I�ll see will be my husband�s there to tell the tale of the latest match.
If Ross not only won but beat his father soundly AND executed some great shots, the clubs will still noisily hit the floor because teenage boys are incapable of doing anything quietly. But they will be followed by two size fourteens bounding up the stairs to be the first to tell the tale.
Ever since Ross became involved in sports he has always told stories in the third person. As in, �Dearth reached the green in a solid two only to birdie the hole with a putt executed like a pro.�
My father was an avid golfer. He played two or three times a week with the same buddies until the day he died ten years ago at the age of sixty-eight. Ross carries his grandfather�s putter in his bag. And I truly think at times my father channels through it. He was a club banger too. And many Saturdays the mood in our house was centered around how well, or not so well, my father had played that morning.
I was always under the impression that games should be fun. But this game of golf, played over and over again, has an elusiveness about it that I simply don�t understand. My husband and son play the same course most of the time as did my father. Yet on any given day, and for reasons unexplainable, they can have a wonderful day or slice and hook their shots so many times that a dozen balls escape them.
Because it is golf season and I live with two golfers, we also watch it on TV. It appears to me that the pros have many of the same problems as the amateurs. On any given day the first nine will go beautifully only to have holes ten through eighteen fall apart and the leader finish not even in the top ten. And the look of frustration on their faces would lead you to believe that they�re not having a lot of fun.
This brings me to point number two about games and golf. I always thought not only were games to be fun, but they were also supposed to be stress relievers.
From the faces I see on TV to the face I saw growing up to the faces I now live with, it seems to me that many times stress and frustration are what this game produces. But then, I don�t play so far be it from me to cast aspersions.
I do know this. Most of the time when at all possible I like to avoid things that cause stress and frustration.
Maybe they should just eliminate tying the words golf and game together.
After all, I think they may truly be an oxymoron.
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