Some pictures from an otherwise undistinguished round of golf (I shot 47 for 9) with a group of very distinguished gentlemen.
Hilton Head, o beautiful muddy island.
Hilton Head is in the news this time of year because of the golf tournament on the Harbour Town course with the iconic light house on the 18th green. It made the news yesterday because an alligator interfered with play -the golfer unfortunately didn’t take the free drop being ignorant of Hilton Head and alligator rules.
The gators on Hilton Head are hogs -fat, mean, and not shy. All the courses have gator rules as well as poisonous snake rules, and the smart golfer takes the free drop. Hilton Head is not the place where you let your toddlers roam free or they might end up free lunch. It’s only a few steps from being a malarial swamp, but it’s blessed with a strange lack of flying vermin. Few mosquitos is very nice, but the island has hedge fund managers infesting the palmettos like velociraptors clad in Tommy Hilfiger. New Yorkers it has in spades like bed bugs on a transient’s hairy knee. It’s Aspen on the tidewater, the Hamptons unburdened by its Long Island umbilical to Manhattan, a New Yorker’s semitropical Hong Kong on the South Carolina/Georgia sea coast. Hilton Head, like Boca Raton, Austin, and Charlotte, is in the South but not of it.
Hilton Head’s isolation proffers it automatic business class status compared to the economy class experience of jitney creeping to the Hamptons on a Friday evening, but really it takes about the same amount of time to get to either place from midtown. Once you arrive, you will notice that Hilton Head is culturally indistinguishable from 78th and Lexington. Sunday mornings, you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between Harbor Town and Southhampton as you hunt and gather for coffee, bagels, and the New York Times.
The sea air is a hint saltier off Montauk and Southampton. The terroir of Hilton Head is a twee riper with more ferment of low tide than is available in Long Island. The aborigines on both islands have been pushed out -on Hilton Head, the once Gullah speaking inhabitants and their white confreres commute from the mainland, unable to afford their island and its taxes. In the Hamptons, the aborigines are long gone, and the more recent inhabitants, the establishment WASP -an endangered species, survives by intermarrying with the new money like the English did with the Normans, only the invading hordes today sport last names like Cohen, Freeman, Chen, and O’Hanlon (the ethnic stereotypes, not the law firm).
When you see Harbour Town on the TV, you think about some kind of tradition, a deep south Cape Cod, but it’s all a pleasant sham. Look hard as you want for the humble shacks out of Conrack -they’re buried beneath the rusticated mini mall around Publix. You might even think the Harbour Town course is super exclusive like Augusta, but au contraire, you just need enough bank. The irony of the Masters getting annually harangued for their peculiar institutions is in the fact that Shinnecock out on Long Island, while no less exclusive and hidebound, gets off the hook because the USGA moves the target around like a 3 card Monte dealer. While it is unlikely that I will get to play on either Augusta or Shinnecock in this life, I can swing Harbour Town once every few years. That is great.
And I’ll finish with this. The Ayn Rand/Gordon Gekko creed of “Greed is good” does work in America because we lack the education and sophistication to dedicate ourselves to political ideals more sophisticated than “less taxes, less government, more God,” but once you get there, once you have arrived, after all the striving and self improving which can take generations from broken English immigrant green grocers to graduate school educated doctors and lawyers, to pretensions to establishment, you are equally bound by the other great American rule voiced by Marx (Groucho, not Karl), “I would never join a club that would have me as its member.” We’re happy to be on Hilton Head, but we know there is something better. Specifically, it’s a helicopter ride to Fisher’s Island.
Welcome to Marriage Brochure
Link below to trifold brochure
For my old friend Mark who just got married. Congratulations.
Our Jackie Robinson
Jeremy Lin is not basketball’s Tebow. He’s a barrier breaking Jackie Robinson for Asian- and Harvard-Americans. For years, all they thought we could do was be attorneys or urologists, but this shows there is more than one way to pass the rock. Now scouts will have to notice that non-black, non-Croatian dude dribbling the ball so well with the four color pen in his short pocket. Asian Harvard-Americans from Orange County to Westchester County are rejoicing. Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, free at last.
More Hoddeok
More hoddeok from maangchi.com. The beauty of this recipe is the convenience of having this treat with minimal prep or cooking. Overall easier than making pancakes for a crowd.
The Holiday Cruise in 30 Tweets
Thoughts before a holiday cruise.
1. If I don’t pay enough for my tickets will I be Irish dancing day and night in steerage.
2. Will there be a series of unsolved murders and will I have to solve them?
3. As we sail into the Bermuda triangle, will there be wifi?
4. If we land on a lost continent, will dinosaur taste like chicken.
5. Will there be monsters?
6. If I ever have to man an oar, will I be man enough?
7. Would the food charge on the lifeboats include tip.
8. Does the rule women and children first include man-children?
9. Does our fare include tribute for harpies, sirens, and cyclops?
10. What is the dollar to doubloon exchange rate?
Thoughts during a cruise
- Some non-Titanic cruise movies they should screen at Movies Under the Stars: The 5th Element, Steve Zissou and the Life Aquatic, Battlestar Galactica, but they don’t take requests.
- Back is aft, forward is forward, right is starboard, left is port, and the bathroom is the head. Kind of funny that left is port.
- Nobody shouts “land-ho!” when land is clearly ho.
- Our steward has better manners than any of us.
- The tropical paradise of Eleuthera is a dollop of sand in the middle of the ocean –if it wasn’t for the concession stand, I’d say two weeks tops before the party descends into cannibalism and Lord of the Flies worship.
- Trying to figure out what is the real reason behind the all you can eat policy.
- Sea Law implies that the captain is a benevolent despot and we are his happy children. Surprisingly, I sleep well.
- Man Overboard! Don’t yell that.
- Vomiting toddlers are treated like infected zombies.
- There is no poop deck, just a walking track.
Thoughts After A Cruise
- Grateful that there were no Kraken, Cyclops, or carnivorous Mermaids showing up asking for tips.
- No icebergs.
- Gastroenteritis outbreak averted by 36 hour quarantine of 2 year old in a 8×10 cell.
- Scopalamine patch effective in creating zombie red eye, furry dry mouth, and Cross Bronx traffic jam constipation.
- Baristas no longer hassling me over my morning precoffee aphasia.
- Income inequality’s logical end point is well illustrated by the juxtaposition of Paradise Island and the slums over the hill from Nassau.
- All you can eat does not mean all you can digest.
- They gouge you with the Wifi, the drinks, the tips, and the duty free stuff that is not profit free.
- Our particular cruise had the ambience of an over the top Bar Mitzvah that would not end.
- Ship’s doctor thankfully didn’t want a tip
The Only Fellow Who Didn't Want a Tip
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One percent of the 1%
From Evernote: |
One percent of the 1% |
The recent focus on Kim Jong Il’s lifestyle brought gasps of astonishment -he sent his sushi chef on a private jet to Japan to shop for rice cakes while his country was starving. Fact is, among the wealthy, there are the über wealthy, and among the über wealthy are the super duper wealthy whose daily budget would feed maybe a thousand families. While we do not begrudge anyone success -as this is the cornerstone of America, even the most callous person has to admit there is some injustice in North Korean society. It does not come from a lack of guns -the noncoms always outnumber the officers, and the fact that people can bribe border guards to escape means that some independent thinking occurs. The fact is that a religion, a cult of personality, sustains the vast inequality of North Korean society. Religions demand faith over logic. Directing the resources of a nation to the sustenance of a few humans at the top defies logic. It is a religious-type faith and fear of retribution, fear of apostasy and heresy, and fear of change that causes this gangrene to linger. What are the idols that drive injustice here at home? It is the belief that success comes from being favored by God and that lack of success comes from sin. It is the belief in absolutes that define religion. This idea afflicts our politics as much as the cult of personality afflicts North Korea.
The subordination of logic to dogma and its use in organizing societies is a old tradition. It gets people across desserts, oceans, and helps individuals process grief and the unfathomable concept of infinity. It is a human trait as ingrained as circling three times before bedding in a dog. Yet this kind of thinking is also used to demonize the poor, write off the sick, and rationalize the unemployed. It is extended into contempt for anything for the public good that comes from taxes -clean water, safe roads, national rail, public health, education and safety. It sanctifies success defined as wealth and therefore denigrates anything that might take away from that wealth.
In our still free society, one’s success is the result of not only hard work, but favorable circumstances, good health, and the support of people who were midwives to the success -the family and community that nurtured the individual and the society that provided the fertile ground for success. It’s the good plumbing that provided fresh water for excellent development. It’s the public safety provided community police and fire departments. It is the critical mass of excellent citizens that allow for success and justice. I think that is the message of the OWS protesters, that the people who get tasty morsels flown in for them not get protections at the cost of the people making it possible.
I wish for the new year the restoration of reason and clear thinking guided not by desire for retribution or a return to a past that never really was. I want an America where everyone has available all the opportunities while being good citizens and supporting the community, state, and country that allowed that to happen.
Father’s Day Golf
Father’s Day passed with several fun things happening. First, I got to play guilt free golf in the morning, and I shot an 84. Given the goal of playing par or better by Halloween 2012, I feel good about my progress. The secret sauce can be seen in the statistics from my Golfplan app.
In May, I was suffering from inconsistent play, and despite daily practice, was unable to make progress. Then I realized that trying to fix your own golf swing is a bit like removing your own gallbladder -something theoretically possible, but highly unlikely in practice. I sought professional help, and at Wakonda Club, we are fortunate to have Aaron Krueger who is a gifted instructor. Over two sessions, he was able to provide one critical principal that has changed my game. It is no surprise that it boils down to grip and stance, alignment and tempo.
It has been a revelation. This round occurred without my usual blow up holes, and I was surprised by the score at the end. And this has been no fluke -I have repeated it this past week and today, on a casual nine, I shot 46 despite a pair of double bogeys and a triple bogey. There is no question that professional instruction is the fastest way to improve.
That wonderful round on Father’s day was followed by swimming with the family and then a barbecue at home of L.A. Galbi, a Korean-American dish that I’ve always had in restaurants but never at home until I came across a recipe on Maangchi’s web site (link). It was clearly one of the best father’s day’s I’ve ever had.
The Perfect Game
Wakond Club No. 1, from blue tees, May, 2011
The perfect game in baseball is a rarity among rarities. Only a handful of no-hitters are seen in a season of baseball, but the perfect game of 27 consecutive outs and no base runners has been achieved only 18 times in baseballs modern era. In golf, the perfect game is all 18 holes played in par or better, and it is a seemingly reachable perfection. Like a dangling fruit just out of hand’s reach, par golf sits there printed on the score card. For the majority of golfers, it is as unattainable as pitching in the major leagues.
The quixotic and perverse nature of golf is that anyone with the means can play a round where a professional tournament is held (aside from uber private locales). And during that round, the average golfer may get a glimpse of perfection in the form of a par on a famous hole, a perfect sand blast to within a foot of the cup, or a chip that clatters against the pin and settles into the hole. These transcendent moments of golf perfection are gobsmack hits of opium for the golfer that brings the poor hack coming back for more. On the score card though, these bright spots of perfection are just holes in the roof letting in shafts of celestial light. I used to keep a golf log, and over the course of two years, my best scores on every hole on my home course resulted in a perfect 72. It was in me, but I suppose I never let it out.
Woe betide the golfer who yearns for more and tried to do something about it. I have finished reading the testimony of John Richardson, who did such a thing and is the proselytizer of the perfect. His book, Dream On: One Hack Golfer’s Challenge to Break Par in One Year (link), is an engaging story that requires golfist faith -the faith that the honesty of the player is a given and that his tale is as true as a score card submitted for handicapping at the clubhouse. It is no big fish story, John’s tale.
I find a lot of things in common with John. We are of similar age growing up in areas where golf is part of the social mesh -me in North Florida, and John in Northern Ireland. I spent many years at the now defunct Baymeadows in Jacksonville, Florida, dreaming of playing with the best while struggling to break 90. Both of us admired Seve Ballesteros and his swashbuckling approach to the game. Both of us gave up golf to become working adults -me to go to college, medical school, and postgraduate training, John to work at becoming a successful entrepreneur. And both of us took up golf again at similar points in life, after marrying and starting families.
What is different about John was that he took his obsession and channeled it into a deliberate path to perfection. At the start, he struggled to break 100, but within a year, he broke par. While it was no surpise, the ending of the book in the kind of ethereal round of golf that all hackers dream of, the tension and drama were there nonetheless. The great thing about the book is not necessarily the end result, but the year long journey he took. John proved that all the well worn excuses that golfers have about themselves -including mine about not letting myself be scratch, are mistaken justifications for continued hacking. In fact, whenever he fell into a rut, it was revealed to him that it was a swing error, something as elemental as grip, posture, stance, and alignment, and not always his negative thoughts. That is correct -it’s not your negative thoughts, but instead bad form and lack of practice that leave your game rotting at bogey or worse.
He does seek professional help -and I have taken this advice by taking my first lesson with our amazing new club professional, Mr. Aaron Krueger. He also sought clinical motivational advice -not a shrink, but very close, because a golfing rapture is limned by golfing madness. And he practiced. A lot. Particularly his short game.
This is like one of those miracle baseball movies you can get where some average Joe all of a sudden is throwing heat in the big leagues. I read his book with the same suspension of disbelief that I have for big fish stories, with golfing faith. It gives me hope, and a renewed sense of purpose. So what does it all mean?
I will hereby publicly declare my intention to break par by the end of next season (October 31, 2012) and bring you along with me. May good golf come walking with me and endow my ball with angel wings.
