However like everything in life, where there's a will there's a way. You might be lucky like me and have had a friend who bought a new set of clubs and was willing to give you his old set. With those clubs you can take that friend to the driving range where he can teach you the ins and outs of a proper swing. Then with that new found swing, the two of you, for roughly the price of dinner and a movie, can go to a local public course and play a round of nine or even eighteen holes.
If you are truly lucky, you might be terrible and lose interest after that first round. Or if you're like me, you might have a modicum of athletic ability and by hook or crook manage to make one or two decent shots during that round which will give you the idea that you could actually become proficient at the game. Thus begins a lifetime of frustration, interspersed with the fleeting triumph of those one or two memorable shots per round that keep you coming back for more misery.
Yes folks, playing golf is an endless cycle of agony mixed with occasional ecstasy. That is, unless you either have a natural gift for the game, or are willing to put in the considerable time and money it takes to become an average golfer.
That said, misery loves company and in my experience, golfers are for the most part a patient and accommodating bunch who've all made their share of bad shots and can feel your pain. The trait above all that defines most of the golfers I have known, is their love and respect for the game. The best part of golf I think for the majority of people who play it, is not the game itself, but rather its social aspects. Most serious golfers it seems, at least in my limited experience, see their role in part to be ambassadors for the game. As such, it is incumbent upon them to make the experience as pleasurable for their partners as it is for themselves. I have found that no matter your skill level, as long as you show respect for the game, for its arcane etiquette, and especially for your fellow players, that respect will be repaid in kind.
As the game is self-policed, proper etiquette is essential to ensure things run smoothly. Two examples: players must tidy up after themselves such as remembering to replace those divots, and should move their way along the course in a reasonably prompt and orderly fashion, including not taking an unreasonable amount of time in search of a lost ball.
But that etiquitte also encourages civility, respect and commaraderie amongst players. Partners in a foursome who may be perfect strangers at the first tee, are expected to cooperate with one other during their time together on the course. That means paying attention to your partners' shots and helping spot where each ball lands, not as easy as it sounds. It also means complimenting your partner on good shots and consoling him or her for bad ones, wherever possible, gently pointing out technical details that could be of help. Golf etiquitte dictates that players in a foursome stick together at each tee until the last player has made his shot, then progress together along the fairway toward the hole, congregating around each ball that is encountered along the way, rather than splitting up in four different directions in search of one’s own ball. There is a whole set of etiquette that determines the correct order of who gets to shoot once the all balls land upon the green. Following that, the winner of that hole takes the first shot on the subsequent one.
The biggest difference between golf and most other games, is that you are in reality competing against the course and your own limitations rather than competing against other players. Yes golfers usually keep score and compare them after each round declaring the winner as the player who has made the fewest cumulative shots necessary to hit the ball from tee to cup in each of the holes of the course. But in no way should one player's actions adversely affect the performance of another player as they do in other games. That is the probably the most sacrosanct rule of the game. It is also probably why golf is the game of choice for people doing business as the competition is usually friendly and the gamesmanship that exists in other sports is kept to a minimum by design.
That is unless you are Donald Trump. Sportswriter Rick Reilly who has written a book about the current president and his fixation with golf, contends that absolutely none of the above matters to Trump. The only thing that Trump cares about in golf according to Reilly can be summed up in one word, winning.
Now I'm sure that upon hearing this, his supporters will be reminded as I was of Michael Jordan, the former superstar of the Chicago Bulls whose single-minded obsession with winning at everything he does is almost as legendary as his phenomenal basketball skills. However the comparison ends there. Jordan fulfills that obsession by relentlessly pushing himself to become better at the things he chooses to do, than other people. In stark contrast, Trump's modus operandi can best be described by the title of Reilly's book: Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump.
Short of reading the book, you can learn about the many ways Trump cheats at golf by reading this article in Rolling Stone, and this one in The Atlantic, penned by Rick Reilly himself.
Cheating in golf is a little like the proverbial taking candy from a baby; it's easy because the honor system of the game dictates that no one is likely to stop you. Taking that simile one step further, cheating at golf is like taking candy from a baby in full view of a room filled with people. Just because no one will stop you from cheating does not mean that people won't notice. It's anybody's guess why the president openly cheats with such impunity, but not at all surprising given his history.
Given that very public history of misbehavior at a very high level for a very long time, why should anybody care if Donald Trump cheats at something as insignificant as golf? After all, Trump cheated on his current wife while she was pregnant with their son, with a porn star no less. That alone places Trump on a very high, (or should I say low) pedestal of scum-bagginess. Unfortunately lots of people, many of them presidents, have cheated on their spouses. Bad as that character flaw may be, most spouse cheaters have other redeeming qualities. But with Trump it seems the deeper you dig into his life to find a mere shred of integrity, the more you come up empty.
Ah you say, fake news. This story was written by a guy, probably a Democrat with an axe to grind against this president, he made it all up. Fair enough, you want proof, OK here it is. One of the very few strictly enforced rules on a golf course is that you never, and I mean never drive your golf cart on the green, the portion of grass that surrounds the hole which is carefully tended by the groundskeepers to insure a predictable track of the ball. If you check out the Rolling Stone article I posted above, there is a video of Trump doing just that. Now if you know anything about the game of golf, that one clip speaks volumes about our president. From my experience, I’ve always felt you can learn a lot about someone by playing a round of golf with him.
Well you say, that golf course probably belongs to Trump, so he’s entitled drive his cart wherever he pleases. Using that logic I guess it makes perfect sense to believe now that he’s president, he’s entitled to do whatever he wants as the laws don't apply to him.
It turns out that Rick Reilly does have a serious axe to grind against Donald Trump, but it's not about politics. It’s about his lack of respect for the game of golf and the negative image of golf he's presenting to the general public.
At the top of this post I noted how influenced I once was by golf stereotypes. However my own experience of the game could not have been more different. About twenty five years ago at the peak of my brief golf career, I typically played at a public course in a predominantly African American neighborhood. The course, on the grounds of what is still referred to by old timers as the South Shore Country Club was once a private, exclusive, and restricted club. Today as it was back when I played there, the complexion of the folks who play golf at South Shore is as diverse as that of the City of Chicago. I remember one day seeing flyers there advertising an exhibition round featuring an up and coming teenage prodigy named Tiger Woods. Understandably there was great interest in seeing the young phenom everyone heard so much about in that particular neighborhood.
Woods was not by a long shot the first black professional golfer, but was hands down the first black golf superstar, ranked up there in the valhalla of golf greats among names like Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus. Until his own fall from grace a few years ago, Tiger Woods was THE public face of golf. Thanks to him, folks no longer thought of golfers as being exclusively rich, out of shape white guys.
Unfortunately for Rick Reilly and just about anybody else who cares, Donald Trump and all he represents has replaced Tiger Woods as the new public face of golf. Reilly points to Trump's comment that golf is something one should aspire to. He doesn't elaborate but one can assume he means that one day you will be rich enough to buy yourself into a fancy country club and be able to hob nob with other rich people like him. Maybe if you're really lucky you might even get to be like Donald Trump himself and be able to bullshit your way into convincing people that you're good at the game, not only that, but a champion to boot.
None of this should be surprising, Donald Trump has what might be considered the Midas Touch in reverse, that is to say, everything he touches turns into garbage. The most tragic example of this is the office which he currently occupies. People used to say that in the United States of America, anyone if they worked hard enough, could be whatever they wanted, even president. Trump has turned that idea upside down. He has proven that yes, anyone can become POTUS, as long as he is willing to stoop low enough. Donald Trump has set the bar for President of the United States so low, you need an excavator to reach it.
Trump according to Reilly is turning the clock of progress in golf back at least one hundred years years. In that sense, golf is indeed a metaphor for Trump's America. He's making America great again just like he's making golf "great again."
If your idea of this country is one where the haves, namely wealthy, entitled, old, lazy white guys rule by virtue of their whim and self-interest over everybody else, then Trump is your guy.
Frankly, that's not my cup of tea, I don't like Trump's vision of America any more than I like his game of golf.
POST SCRIPT: On Sunday April 14, 2019, exactly one week after this post was written, after an eleven year drought of winning a major tournament, Tiger Woods won the most prestigious one of all, the Masters in Augusta, Georgia. Perhaps if Rick Reilly and golf fans the world over are lucky, a bona fide athlete and someone who is actually good at golf will once again become the public face of the game.
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