Golf Lessons

A couple of wonderful outings the last few days have kept me from blogging: 30+ holes of golf on Wednesday, and seeing/listening to Bill Fox last night. I've written about Bill before here, so today I'm going to write about some of the things I've learned from being around golf as a caddie, coach, and player for nearly forty years (I still haven't learned to break 80, though, more than a small handful of times, so all lessons here are esoteric rather than instructive).

• when you hear the word "fore" yelled at you, the ball never comes close to hitting you; when you don't hear the word, that's when you get clocked
• if you're still missing the putt on your fourth do-over putt, it ain't meant to be
• I'm semi-famous for a quick tee it up and hit it; if I had a nickel for every time somebody talked in my backswing, I could maybe afford a round at a swanky course by now
• replacing a divot after a good shot is a great feeling of communing with nature; replacing a divot after a lousy shot is akin to accidentally finding a wasp nest
• if most golfers were miked as much as Tiger Woods is, Tiger would have the reputation for being one of the best-mouthed players around
• there is no cooler, more unique and special role in sports than the golf caddie
• visors can only make a beautiful woman look more beautiful; visors can only make a man look dorky
• there have been plenty of days when the best part of my golf game has been the 99.9% coverage of my sun-block application
• a canned six-foot putt is much more thrilling than a long, straight, soaring drive--and usually much more important in the grand scheme of things score-wise and bets-wise
• beer (singular) can serve to relax and improve your game slightly; beers (plural) can be a disaster
• wherever two or more trees are gathered in close proximity on a golf course, there you have a functioning men's room
• I like the feel of spikeless golf shoes, but the sound of spikes on a cart path is a sound I miss dearly
• as I remember, the euphoria of driving a golf cart as a kid was greater than that of first driving a car
• if you don't know the vast difference between saying "I had a six on that hole" and saying "gimme a six," you don't know anything about golf
• if you have to convince yourself that sure you can make it over the water, you better have an extra ball at the ready
• if someone "gives" you a putt, pick up the ball graciously at once; those "are you sure, thanks," half-ass swipes at the ball then awkward lurches to tap the in-motion ball into the hole embarrass everybody
• if you look forward to flirting with the beer-cart girl, you're way out of your league and should look into taking up bowling
• you can tell the quality of the golfer by the quality (i.e. existence of) his ball retriever
• Johnny Miller and the other over-analysts on NBC's golf coverage aside, the only "smart leave" is the one where the ball falls into the hole
• I've never seen a tree I can't hit a ball through, and never played a ball that can't find any tree on the course
• the best golf-related true story I've ever heard: my cop friend once stopped a guy on suspicion of breaking into and robbing a stripper's car (true story, I swear); besides having a clutch of Pat Benatar CDs on him, the guy was also wearing golf shoes (in the dead of winter); "so you play golf, hunh?" my friend the cop asked; "yes," replied the man; "what's your handicap," the cop asked; the man replied, in all seriousness, "schizophrenia."