Who Likes Golf?

Lots of golf in my life this last week. 18 holes on Thursday and another 18 yesterday. Thursday I played 9 holes with J.D. Faris in Senior League (he was subbing for Wilma) followed by 9 holes with Lucas (playing our Community League round). Friday I played 9 holes with Colleen, just for fun and to warm up for a second 9 holes, during which she was subbing for Shirley Jeffers, another one of my Community League partners. You would think I actually liked the game!

Mostly I enjoy being outdoors (and not working), and being with good friends and/or family. That’s a good thing because I certainly do not enjoy the scores I end up with (the scores with which I end up?... no… the scores up with which I end?). “Dangling participles”: I wish I had never heard of them. English is terrible with all its rules and contradictions, and I am constantly reminded how glad I am that I don’t have to learn it as a second language!!

We took over the management of the golf course in January of 1998 and I spent most of the next several summers working in a flimsy, crowded 10’ x 12’ structure that does a poor job of pretending to be a clubhouse. I started playing golf sometime during the summer of 2000 after having realized that I could certainly not do any worse than some of the people I had been watching through the windows. (Little did I know.) Another reason I attempted learning the game was to become more comfortable with the language, and to be able to share stories with other golfers. I did successfully achieve some of those goals, but I still feel awkward and out of synch when I try to play the game. Maybe learning a new sport at age 60 is not such a good idea. Any improvement is offset by getting even older.


On the other hand, never in my life was I an athlete, only an occasionally interested observer of a few select sports, and then only in small doses… so there you go.
One especially fun thing about golf is that there are so many excuses why one isn’t doing well that day… and I have used most of them :-)