So Much More Than A Game

Sometimes I wonder why I bother to play golf. It’s not like I’m particularly good at it, nor am I getting any better.

The laws of physics may be to blame, especially the one about equal and opposite reactions. For each of the hundreds of swing cues I try to remember during a hurried backswing, there are an equal number of opposite, uncontrolled body reactions that have a much greater influence on my shot.

Technology teases me with promise. Perhaps one of those aerodynamic, dimple-cheeked, mylar-impregnated, epoxy-graphite-shafted alloy “woods” would help. But their aesthetics are lacking.

To me, hitting a ball with a metal wood has all the sensory appeal of dropping an aluminum trash can lid on a garage floor.

There is something about real-wood woods, persimmon woods, that still appeals to me.

That may have a lot to do with a Saturday morning in the early 1960s when I was 11 years old. After breakfast, my father folded his morning newspaper, slid his chair back with a certain authority and announced that it was time for a certain young man to own his first set of golf clubs.

Those first clubs (cherry-finish persimmon-headed woods and forged irons) stood proudly next to my dad’s clubs in the garage.

My dad insisted that I invest plenty of time on the practice range before venturing out with the real weekend players.

I don’t remember those long hours on the range as much as the special mornings when my dad hoisted our bags into the trunk of his car, made the long silent drive to the course and hurried me out onto the first tee to squeeze in a few instructional holes ahead of the weekend crowd.

I still remember how the dew would drip off the tips of our shoes and the grass would glisten in the sunrise.

The morning air was full of new sounds: the “whock” of the persimmon woods slapping balata balls off the tees, the rattle of the irons in the bag as our shoes crunched along the gravel paths, the hiss of early dawn sprinklers, even the gentle gurgle from the rooster tail of water that would spit out behind the ball when putting on the dew-laden greens.

My father did not talk much, but occasionally offered some gruff instructions: “Keep your eye on the ball. … Keep your left arm straight. … Swing easier. …” Over the years, the distractions and demands of college, career and later family took over. I stopped playing golf. My original clubs, and a couple of sets to follow, found their way to garage sales.

I later moved across the country, away from my parents, and never played golf again with my dad. Somehow, it never seemed to fit into our short visits.

Sometimes I wonder if he wasn’t a bit disappointed that I had lost interest in the game.

I was living in Connecticut and my parents were living in California when I learned my dad had cancer.

I spent some quiet, largely wordless time with him before he died. Afterward, my mother asked if I wanted to go into the garage and look through some of dad’s things to see if there was anything I wanted to bring back with me.

All I saw at first were the normal collections of boxes and lawn tools that accumulate over the years, and I was about to leave empty-handed when I spotted the familiar shape of a brown-leather golf bag in the corner by the back door.

A receipt tied to one of the irons showed he had ordered them just after he had been diagnosed with cancer. He also had specifically ordered persimmon woods and forged irons, even though metal woods and cast clubs were coming into vogue.

I tucked the bag into a zippered travel case and took it home.

After a few months, I started playing again. It was strange pulling on a wrinkled glove I found in the bag and finding a rumpled score card in his handwriting. Even more unsettling was to grip the driver he once held in his hands.

Now that some semblance of a swing has been restored, I am quick to jump at an invitation to play with others.

But every once in a while, I like to go out by myself early in the morning when the dew drips off the tips of your shoes; when you can hear the “phittt-phittt” of the sprinklers, the whock only a persimmon wood can make, the rhythmic clatter of the irons in the bag, the crunching of the gravel as you walk down the path; and when you look up quickly from your putt, the rooster tail spraying out as the ball crosses the green.

It’s on those mornings that I can still hear my dad’s voice: “Keep your eye on your goals. … Keep your life straight. … Take things easy. …” And it’s on those mornings that I remember why I play golf.