The optic yellow golf ball was my personal favorite during my childhood. Not too many people liked it. I liked the yellow Aviators and Prostaff’s as I could really smash my persimmon driver on them and usually find them. All the major golf ball manufacturers made yellow and orange balls for a time. Now, colored golf balls are relegated to the ladies. I think this is a sad state of affairs as I think that part of the appeal of the yellow golf ball is that it is not like everybody else’s golf ball. Looking around, I see for 2008, only Top Flight offers a “Distance Yellow” ball. I’m going to pick up a bunch.
The lost golfball is usually not the same as a lost child
Hyperion #13
Imagine if you are of a certain age, and you now have time to take up golf. You can play in the middle of the week, and you take a few lessons, read some golf magazines, and you find a group of guys at your general skill level. All four of you take to the course as often as you can, and you poke the balls out there, never in the middle of the fairway, but into the thick stuff, only the thick stuff at Hype is only 2-3 inches deep, very forgiving. None of your clustered eight eyes see beyond general trajectories. One of you who may have been in the artillery during ‘Nam (not Korea, as you clearly are still walking), adds in wind into the general calculus. So after you hit your tee shots, and until you get on the green, the rate limiting step of your round is finding the golfball.
The artillery guy waves his hands towards the bushes ahead, or to the cart path to the right or to the unconscious old guy to the left, and starts his partners on their mission, which now no longer is golf, but rather a gruesome easter egg hunt. I can hear their joints cracking across the fairway as they rustle about the rough. There is no glee in the dour faces of these gentleman, but rather the serious, searching squint of hunter-gatherers looking for their next meal. I do get it, as for these guys, the finding of balls, and not necessarily of their own balls, but of more balls, is basically the only reward they get as I have rarely seen any of these guys putt out -it’s a potlatch of plenty on the greens as they bestow five to ten footers to each other after spending five minutes each squinting and plotting their lag putts. Of course, there will always be one who insists of putting out, but he will spend five minutes on the one footer as well as the thirty footer.
Imagine this multiplied by five or ten, and all of these fine men are hunting and gathering for balls, calculating and fussing over putts that they might make once a year, and never holing out which is the point of stroke play.
Imagine this whole bunch unmarshalled and unregulated. They can’t see the group waiting behind them, and because they keep running into the group ahead, they assume that golf is always slow.
And that is fine. They are experiencing golf in their own way. They are experience the joy of the wandering search. The fine air, the cool breeze, how many of these days do we have left to us? We don’t know but we know they are finite.
I am happy they have their place to play at golf and at golf ball hunting. And I am glad to know where these people are.
DMGCC greens revealed to be anatomic
I had always wondered why the greens at DMGCC never matched up with the course. The course itself is fair, and I rarely lose balls. The greens were driving me to distraction, and now I know why. They are all contoured on various parts of the female torso. I noticed it when I was stuck on the right butt cheek putting across ass cleavage to the left butt cheek. No kidding. Tee to fringe, very nice course. Greens -topography straight from Venus de Milo. 
The Godfather, the HAC, and Houston
When I was a child, I saw The Godfather and The Godfather Part II. I have watched it again and again, and I read Mario Puzo’s masterpiece. I have upgraded the movies as the media changes, but have held off upgrading to the DVD’s until now -it’s available on iTunes and will now travel with me on my iPhone on my next trip.
It’s greatness is in its authentic portrayal of the immigrant experience. It’s about being an outsider. It’s about the wages of sin and losing of the soul in pursuit of the American dream.
What is the American Dream today? In striving for it, what do we lose? Why did we as a society go “All In” on housing, with borrowed chits from the Chinese who now run the tables.
In troubled times, we will all end up going to the mattresses, banding together. The HAC is an important thing because it is Our Thing -it allows the men in our community to gather and see what kind of golfers we are.
Tears came to my eyes when I saw a subdivision a lot like ours in Houston without electricity. It wasn’t the lack of electricity, but the orange extension cords going from the homes with power to their neighbors without power that were physical representations of the connectedness of these people.
The HAC, play groups, the block parties, these work to make us closer. We will all need each other in these troubled times.
Favorite hole at DMGCC – No. 18, South Course
I love this hole. Above is the view you get if you launch a power fade over the tree. It is the funnest hole on the south 18 at DMGCC.
It also means you are done and you get to go home soon and not have to deal anymore with the windmill, the half pipe, and funhouse and all the other greens. The purple ball goes down the chute and you turn in your putter to the crabby old guy behind the cash register.
For whatever reason, I have always started out strong at DMGCC, but something about the greens here get my goat. It bends me out of shape. On number 1, I drew a nice 8 iron into a stiff left to right wind about 10 feet from the cup, but the break never showed up on the putt, but did on the next which tried every which way not to roll in.
I did play with my neighbors, and that made up for my miseries. KP and JN were wonderful compatriots, true golfists. JS, who joined us on the back, is scratch, and I got a glimpse of the promised land. I can’t see how I’ll ever get there, but I have faith that it is there.
I should stop whining.
Watch out for the fuzz on Douglas
Hallbrook friends, pay attention on the downhill run home. Speedtrap!
Grass looks good at Wakonda
It is impressive how fast crops grow in Iowa. Can’t wait to roll putts on the new practice green.
Why is golf played by white, suburbanites? asks Bill Pennington, or so it seems.
Bill Pennington’s article in the NYT (link here) gives me a bit of a pause, as I do have opinions about the curse of nativism that forms part of the American political fabric on both sides of the divide. He brings up the possibility that diversity is an asset, by pointing out the homogeneity of the US side -without mentioning Anthony Kim, my homey spectaculare. Basically, the article didn’t make much sense to me as the European side isn’t exactly the Mod Squad.
Bill’s inconsistencies aside, I do think that golf in the US does suffer from the image of Spaulding Smails lurching about at the country club (interview with fellow who played him below). I don’t think that the US team can be faulted for its composition, but I do believe that all of us as golfers need to do better to spread the word about golf. We should consider it our mission as committed golfists to invite and encourage beginners rather than insulated yourself with your usual cronies.
update:
US wins Ryder Cup! Anthony Kim’s match with Sergio was accompanied by the sound of a giant doorbell going bing – bong.
Just go
From golf, I am approaching many things with new focus. The deliberation and planning, the fact gathering, and the ultimate decision making with contingencies is easier because I visualize it as a process much like preparing for and lining up a golf shot. Once you are set up, you have to achieve a present-emptiness focused on execution of your plan. This is a thoughtful state in that you are connected to your senses and the levers of activity, but a bit different from the “you can’t blink” quote floating around which has the same origin as “shoot ’em first and let God sort them out.”
Whatd’I shoot? Oh, I had a 79 yesterday, but my back hurts today, just can’t swing the club as well.
Part 1
Part 2
I will need dental work from grinding my teeth while watching these. It is obvious that she doesn’t know a gap wedge from a mid-iron. That you take stroke and distance with out of bounds. If she gets elected, and McCain succumbs to his age (actuarially has about 3-5 years left), she will be our president. She’s claiming she’s scratch.
So you go play a round with her, and she can’t hit a straight ball. You catch her rolling the ball in the rough. You see her grounding the club in the hazard. She walks across your line on the green. And after many complaints about her back interfering with her swing, you come across the scorecard which has herself two under par. Who are you kidding?
This is a dangerous person who is the apotheosis (a big word she probably doesn’t know) of a culture of purposeful ignorance. She’s that crazy mid-level manager that somehow ended up CEO and will fire anyone who doesn’t hold up her mirror. The question about the Bush doctrine was salient, and will probably be lost on 90% of America that can’t locate Iraq on a globe, much less the US. The Bush doctrine is really about that crazy neighbor that runs out onto the yard with a shotgun when your kid steps on his lawn. That is us, from the world’s point of view, after the debacle that is Iraq. She flips and flops on global warming and tries to come off playing Al Gore.
It’s as if that crazy PTO mom who scares all the other mommies is now going to be your president.
Golfism -life is a metaphor for golf 