Friday, September 23, 2005
Jacki's Bane
Man is a masochistic animal. He has used his great gift of imagination to create self-torment and suffering as a pastime. Only when we realize this, to we begin to comprehend that torture called Golf.
It is my mission today to help you understand this pastime.
Golf masquerades as a sport. During the three to six hours required to play a ‘round’, a ‘golfer’ is required to swing a ‘club’ between thirty and sixty times and to tap a ball gently another thirty to sixty times. This requires about sixty seconds total. The rest of the time is spent either walking or riding uncomfortably after the ball, looking for it, and bemoaning your ill fortune that the ball didn’t bounce more favorably.
To truly understand the ‘game’ it is necessary to come to grips with its terms - that arcane lingo of misapplied English words. May I gloss? Thank you.
Address the ball - This does not mean speaking to the ball with such words as "I’m going to strike you ball." or "Please go straight ball." Instead, it means standing over the ball, filled with hope and trepidation.
Backswing - this word, largely misunderstood, does not refer to taking the club back in preparation for striking the ball, at the same time twisting yourself into an uncomfortable knot. Rather, it refers to your turning your back on the ball in an effort to show that you are really contemptuous of it and the misery it may be about to inflict.
Birdie - This term celebrates being able to walk a few hundred yards without stepping in Canada Goose droppings.
Divot - Deliberate destruction of the playing surface in order to create extra hardships for the players following you.
Hole - The ultimate repository of the ball. It enables you to stop counting and start again from ‘one’. A golf course has only eighteen holes due to the limited counting ability of the mental deficient who invented the game.
Hole-in-One - This is considered a great accomplishment. It means that you are excused from having to hit again during that ‘hole.’ It also means your friends are doomed to suffer the story ad nauseum.
Pro Shop - an inefficient, overpriced purveyor of usually useless parafanalia.
Rough - This is the area of the course from which most shots are hit.
Teaching Pro - An individual trained and dedicated to the destruction of your psyche. The Pro is the catalyst of masochism.
Tee - This is short for Tee-Hee, the near-silent giggle your companions utter at the awkwardness of your swing.
Truth - Unknown to golfers.
Now, having mastered the terminology, you’re ready to get serious. As in many other pastimes, you’re required to dress idiotically, only more so. There’s a famous old golf story about a professional woman golfer who made the mistake of wearing a knitted dress to play in. A rainstorm came up suddenly and in her waterlogged dress she was unable continue.
In my twenties I played every Sunday on the Black Course at Bethpage. Legend has it that when the rocks from the other courses at Bethpage were removed, they were all dumped on the site of the Black Course, making it extraordinarily difficult, perfect for unrelieved masochism.
One of my playing companions, who was the longest and wildest hitter among us, would almost invariably slice or hook his tee shot into the woods. We would hear him slashing and banging away in the tall grass until he joined us on the green. "I’m lying two," he would declare. See Truth.
It is my mission today to help you understand this pastime.
Golf masquerades as a sport. During the three to six hours required to play a ‘round’, a ‘golfer’ is required to swing a ‘club’ between thirty and sixty times and to tap a ball gently another thirty to sixty times. This requires about sixty seconds total. The rest of the time is spent either walking or riding uncomfortably after the ball, looking for it, and bemoaning your ill fortune that the ball didn’t bounce more favorably.
To truly understand the ‘game’ it is necessary to come to grips with its terms - that arcane lingo of misapplied English words. May I gloss? Thank you.
Address the ball - This does not mean speaking to the ball with such words as "I’m going to strike you ball." or "Please go straight ball." Instead, it means standing over the ball, filled with hope and trepidation.
Backswing - this word, largely misunderstood, does not refer to taking the club back in preparation for striking the ball, at the same time twisting yourself into an uncomfortable knot. Rather, it refers to your turning your back on the ball in an effort to show that you are really contemptuous of it and the misery it may be about to inflict.
Birdie - This term celebrates being able to walk a few hundred yards without stepping in Canada Goose droppings.
Divot - Deliberate destruction of the playing surface in order to create extra hardships for the players following you.
Hole - The ultimate repository of the ball. It enables you to stop counting and start again from ‘one’. A golf course has only eighteen holes due to the limited counting ability of the mental deficient who invented the game.
Hole-in-One - This is considered a great accomplishment. It means that you are excused from having to hit again during that ‘hole.’ It also means your friends are doomed to suffer the story ad nauseum.
Pro Shop - an inefficient, overpriced purveyor of usually useless parafanalia.
Rough - This is the area of the course from which most shots are hit.
Teaching Pro - An individual trained and dedicated to the destruction of your psyche. The Pro is the catalyst of masochism.
Tee - This is short for Tee-Hee, the near-silent giggle your companions utter at the awkwardness of your swing.
Truth - Unknown to golfers.
Now, having mastered the terminology, you’re ready to get serious. As in many other pastimes, you’re required to dress idiotically, only more so. There’s a famous old golf story about a professional woman golfer who made the mistake of wearing a knitted dress to play in. A rainstorm came up suddenly and in her waterlogged dress she was unable continue.
In my twenties I played every Sunday on the Black Course at Bethpage. Legend has it that when the rocks from the other courses at Bethpage were removed, they were all dumped on the site of the Black Course, making it extraordinarily difficult, perfect for unrelieved masochism.
One of my playing companions, who was the longest and wildest hitter among us, would almost invariably slice or hook his tee shot into the woods. We would hear him slashing and banging away in the tall grass until he joined us on the green. "I’m lying two," he would declare. See Truth.
