The Golf Player Blog
Ode to the Golfing Dad
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When I was a kid, my Dad secretly practiced his swing in the house if it was too rainy to go outside. This being the States, mind you, where a light drizzle will send us yanks running indoors to hide until the sun comes back out.
Anyway, Dad would wait until Mom was out before wielding the Big Bertha driver in the kitchen. I suppose because she would have objected to anything other than some gentle practice on his fake little putting green contraption. That beauty had been his father’s from the 1960s – or as history remembers it, The Plastic Age. It even spat the ball back out at you if you managed to sink one. Must have been the envy of the neighbourhood in its time, come to think of it.
Anyway, I never knew what all the fuss was about for my Mom. My Dad was good at the game, after all, and above all else, a controlled man. That is, until the day I wandered in to make myself a snack, just in time to catch him take a swing which hit my Mom’s antique chandelier. WHACK! SMASH. I froze in the doorway. Meanwhile my Dad, determined not to lose his cool, had followed through with the swing anyway and held the club confidently over his shoulder. For a good 5 seconds he stood like that. He even gazed ahead at the opposite wall with a look of pure, serene determination, as though he was staring down the fairway of some beautiful Floridian course. Then he shot me a frantic look. "Help me clean this up, Taylor. DO IT." I knew from that day onwards that my Dad was not just tooling around with this sport, the way some fathers dabble in mechanics or barbequing. Nay, he was possessed with the sport of golf. A sport that can drive otherwise reasonable middle aged men to behave in all sorts of batty ways. I didn’t get it then, and I still don’t. But being his only and ever dutiful daughter, I thought I’d give it a shot. You know, for him. Especially when I found out that "Golf" is alleged to have stood for "Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden." Screw that, I thought. I’ll SLAY this thing. Dad was excited I wanted to play. He’d been trying to get Mom onboard for years. "A visor, a stick, and a tiny ball? No thanks." She wasn’t going there. So I stepped up. How hard could it be? There was even a golf line called Taylor Made for goodness’ sake. I was destined to rock at golf. We went for a day of practice at the range. That day is now just a blur of confusion for me, except for my father's incessant commands, which have been branded uselessly on my brain: Follow through. Follow through, Taylor. STOP PIVOTING YOUR FOOT. Link your pinkie finger with your index finger. LIKE THIS. No, not THAT way, the OTHER way. STOP PIVOTING YOUR FOOT. Don’t look up until the ball’s gone. Stop sashaying your HIPS. FOLLOW THROUGH. I was starting to rue the day I had bought him "How to Break 100 in 30 Days." The guy shot in the 70s already, what was I THINKING? Now he was using my gift as a mind control device. Tutorial finished. With me no closer to understanding how my desperate, hacking movements were going to get me anywhere, he deemed me ready for the 18 - hole course near our house. “It’s an easy course, it’s tiny. You’ll fly through it. We don’t even need to rent a cart, we’ll walk it.” One thing I learned about golfing that day is that it’s not the leisurely sport I had pictured. My dad would leave for a game at 5 am and not return till the afternoon, leading me to believe that at each hole, one was allowed to sit down, admire the view, and chill out until one felt like carrying on. I also assumed we’d be zooming around in a CART. But no. “Do you think the first golfers at St. Andrews had carts? No. They walked.” I did not, in fact, think they had carts at St. Andrews 600 years ago. But I WAS used to constant references to St. Andrews. If golf was Dad’s religion, St. Andrews was his Vatican City. The holy land where Scottish Golf Angels flew around and helped you chip. Which brings me to chipping. Chipping sucks. Chipping is what I would take out of golf if I could take something out. That and ugly shorts. Because otherwise, once I got over the lack of cartage, the experience wasn’t a total disaster. I have to be honest. I was actually OK at driving. But that’s only because for me, when you start at the beginning, you are so ridiculously far from your goal that there’s no reason to get picky or panicked about anything. Me and Big Bertha did an OK job taking big swings and getting the ball where she was supposed to be. Most of the time. But chipping. You get to where you want to be. You can see it. See the flag. You smile. You think, wow, I’m so close. I’ve done it. I started way back THERE, and now somehow. . I’m here. Even though my Dad has yelled at me for the 11th time to carry my clubs, and don’t just walk away from them; and even though the people playing behind us literally want to bash my head in – I’m here. And now it’s time to chip. You know when really little kids, toddlers, can’t throw a ball, and it goes wildly off target? That’s me, chipping. Back and forth over the hole, around the hole, nowhere near the hole. 27 times a go, I’d chip. Under apple trees. Next to ponds. Near frightened ducks. Sextuple Million Zillion bogey. So 3 days later, we finished the game. I don’t remember either of our scores. I’ll give this to Dad. He hung in there and didn’t give up on me. I guess really, he couldn’t. Not only did we have those homicidal people behind us (guess they didn’t find the father-daughter exchanges as poignant as I. . .) but he wasn’t one to give up anyway. Not on golf, not on family, not on anything. I’ve not played the game since that day, but that realisation is the only part I really get about golf: It’s not for people who like to give up on things. It’s a frustrating, improbable, ridiculous game for people who somehow dig deep and keep going, keep trying to improve, against all odds. And for that, I love my Dad – my chandelier smashing, instruction barking, golf obsessed, wonderful Dad. As for golf? I’ll leave it to the pros. Taylor Glenn |
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I've got to get out there...
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Golf, what is it about Golf that I can't get out of my head? Every time I see golf on TV, a part of me always is drawn to it. In a second, the frustration, the endless hours in the driving range, the golf clubs thrown in anger, and the lost balls all seem to melt away. All I think is, I've got to get out there, get better at this game!
Every conversation with a golf-pro, club player or a keen enthusiast only fuels my desire to get better, hit more balls and be more like Tiger. From all my early pitch and putt experiences, I have been fascinated with golf. It's like no other sport. I can still remember the excitment of getting some clubs from the council golf course and attempting to get around in 100 or less on holes you should have sunk in 1 or 2 shots! There were many over exuberant drives where the ball ended up in a lake, in the sea or nearly in someones head. Happy times indeed. The margin between perfection and disaster is so small its unlike anything else. Football, Tennis, Surfing, Cricket, all seem easy by comparison to swinging that club and meeting that ball with a perfect, fluid swing. Golf is the kind of sport that gets in your mind and your heart, once its there you can't change it and you'll be back for more. It's so frustrating, and although we're having a break right now, I know I'll be back. Porthkerry Pete |
All fairways lead to Wales
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The mission to bring the Ryder Cup back to Europe begins and yes we are allowed to get excited this early... Captain Corey and Captain Colin are due to go head to head at the Wales Open in June on the Ryder Cup 2010 course. Pavin is also calling for Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson to make a Ryder recce and play the Wales Open (hmm, I'm might copyright the phrase 'Ryder recce'...), where Montgomerie already has big name European team probabilities Miguel Angel Jiminez and Ian Poulter confirmed to play.
So what's there to get accustomed to at the Celtic Manor Ryder Cup course in the heart of South Wales? Well seems too easy to go down the Welsh stereotype route... sheep grazing on the fairway... daffodil's instead of pins... leeks on the menu in the clubhouse... oh and Tom Jones bellowing out a chorus of Delilah just as take your backswing on the first tee! The Golf Player |
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