GOLF DIGEST
Saibal Kumar Bose ’83
The Hard Nut said, “If a guy is hooked he doesn’t need
to read your crap to continue and if he is not already a convert, don’t try.”
But when Mark Twain called golf ‘a good walk – spoiled’ millions of golfers
cried out across the world. Such a glorious game being compared with the
plebian act as walking. Some others wanted to know his handicap, others his
parentage. Clergymen prayed for divine
retribution while the man of law said, “Mark Twain is an ass”.
Golf is a way of life. A world where wife, children
and job are substituted by irons, niblicks and eagles. Golfers think, dream
and, unfortunately, talk golf. The barometer of the game can measure their
moods, and their social standings by
their handicap. From the champion to the goof, the game of golf is an
all-consuming passion. The universe is a mere illusion, the reality is the
putting green. Heaven is a beautiful golf course and the non-believers look
silly when they get there.
A touch of machismo and a dash of megalomania is what
makes a golfer. “Golf is so popular,” says A. Milne, “because it is the best
game to be bad in.” Golfers are perennially doomed to muff their shots, to have
bunkers intercept the ball, and to three putt their way to the hole. Perfect
golf is played only on the nineteenth
hole. The rest is sheer agony. When you have puffed your way to push the
skittish ball into a malevolent hole, having escaped the lures of the sand
traps, lakes and the fourth dimension, you feel entitled to the justice of a
decent putt. But no, the moment you make contact with the ball, the hole jumps
to the side and the ball lodges itself in a position where a stick of dynamite
will do it any good. No wonder golfers tend to be nervous, highly strung
individuals. Every game is replete with incidents that demonstrate the
existence of a malicious fate. Who can forget Wodehouse’s immortal character
who complained of being distracted by “the uproar of butterflies in the next of
meadow.”
An overactive imagination, is in fact, the golfer’s
greatest enemy. Most golfers defeat themselves thinking of pitfalls. Bobby
Jones remarked, “In golf every man is his own opponent.” Walter Hagen
contended, “Give me a big man with no brains and I’ll make a golfer of him”.
Golf is a game of mind over matter- where the flesh is willing, but the spirit,
alas, is weak.
Cursed by luck burdened with an unnecessary brain and
harassed by unsporting opponents, the golfer gamely struggles on. And if he
cheats a little, or lies a bit, compassion demands that he be forgiven. The
classical definition of a golfer is “one who shouts four, takes six and writes
down five.”
Indeed the only pleasure that a golfer gets is in
talking about the game. In long monologues and with martyred looks, they tell
the lousy day they had. Of how, but for the sky falling on his head, he would
have finished the round on a 72 instead of an 86. And, of course, the golfer’s
tales on the progress of a game bears little resemblance to reality. As is
said, “Golf is a game where the ball
often lies badly, but the golfer always lies well.” So when a golfer claims to
have got an albatross on the thirteenth and an eagle on the ninth, he is well
advised to tell it to the birds.
The Gods, of course, are aware of this failing.
Mythology has it that there was once a curate who deserted his flock for a
Sunday afternoon of solitary golf. Unfortunately, God and St. Peter were both
in the vicinity. “I’ll teach this man a lesson,” said the former. So the
curator teed off and his first shot , an enormous drive, went into the lake,
bounced on a lily pod, ricocheted off a tree, hit the flag and dropped into the
hole. “You call that a lesson?”, asked St. Peter, surprised. God nodded in
satisfaction. “Now who is he going to tell that to?, He asked.
I love golf and could write pages of poetry and prose
in praise of the game, but then there is no justice in golf. It remains the
only game where the player gets rewarded for playing below par.