Bits & Pieces

The Evils Of Golf

By Kim J. Harmon

It has become so plain to see – for me. Golf is evil.

For a few weeks now I have been playing golf like an inebriated monkey. The 2007 season started off pretty well and I was pretty consistent, if unspectacular. My handicap kept creeping on the downward path until it tasted the teens … i.e., 19.

But then came a stretch where I spent more time worrying about poison ivy in the woods and whether or not there was a snapping turtle hiding behind a half-submerged rock. I was spraying balls all over the place and putting like I simply did not have a clue.

Then came Sunday, on the Gilead Highlands course at Blackledge Country Club in Hebron.

I knew something was in the air when, on the first green, I was asked if I needed the flag and squinting at the hole from 30 feet away I said, “Nah, ‘cause this is going in.” Which it did, a sharp breaker to the right that rolled easily into the cup.

Two holes later, I was faced with a 143-yard shot to a somewhat elevated green. A trap guarded the front and the pin was cut up front on a narrow green. I thought that I would have to drop this shot on top of the trap, just on to the apron, and let it feed to the hole … as if strategy ever applied to any of my shots. But that was exactly what I did, with the ball settling about four feet from the hole. I missed the birdie, but – hey.

I only had one blip, a triple bogey on the fourth hole. I had an angry confrontation with a sand trap and it didn’t go well for me.

But I parred six of the first seven holes I played and bogeyed eight and nine to finish the front side at 41.

For some people reading this that’s – eh. But for me, that’s something.

Now, Gilead Highlands is short – 5,700 yards from the whites and 6,100 yards from the blues (where we play from) – but it is a target course with some pretty tight fairways and a lot of trouble. Poor shots will rarely get forgiven on this course.

I found that out on the back side last week.

As sharp as I was on the front, I was as blunt on the back. I knocked a couple shots down, drowned a couple more, and had to negotiate a couple of unplayable lies. So, there I strung together four double bogeys in a row before I found some way to knock in a 10-footer for par on the 14th.

With four bogeys to finish, I carded a more mundane 48.

A couple hours before, I was hoping for an 82 or an 83 but finished with an 89 that – at least I have the perspective to remember this – could have been worse.

Why anyone plays this game is beyond me. Do we need this aggravation? Do we need this grief?

No – but we subject ourselves to it week in and week out because of those long birdies, those few (and far between) perfect drives, those great shots out of the bunker.

We want to do it again.

And we won’t stop until we realize we simply can’t … and even then someone will have to pry those clubs out of our hands.

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For years, I couldn’t stand Phil Rizzuto.

Couldn’t stand him. And when he was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, I was flabbergasted.

Like most baseball fans my age (44), I simply couldn’t appreciate what he had accomplished on the baseball field. A lot of that had to do with not seeing him to play, but I felt justified when I looked at his career numbers – a .273 batting average with 38 home runs and a soft .355 slugging percentage in 13 years – and they seemed positively meager.

When he was in the broadcast booth, I could never get past his endless ramblings and birthday wishes and what not. The fact that he would often leave in the seventh inning to beat the traffic over the bridge was good, ‘cause then the game was left to Bill White and Frank Messer.

I’ve gotten some perspective over the years, though.

I look at his numbers a little bit closer and I see his MVP season in 1950 when he hit a career-high .324 with a career-high 36 doubles, a career-high seven home runs, a career-high .418 on-base percentage and a career-high .439 slugging percentage and I realize he was an exceptional player in an era when you didn’t need your shortstop to hit, only field.

I think back to his broadcasting and now I laugh when I remember the times he would scream, “Holy Cow!” on a ball that ended up as a short fly to second. There are so many cookie cutter announcers out there with their trite catchwords (an A-Bomb from A-Rod? Come one!) that being able to listen to someone who seemed so excited to be doing what he was doing should be cherished

It’s unfortunate that a lot of people – like Scooter – can’t be appreciated in their prime. That it takes a lot of years and a lot of separation to gain some perspective on a performance we should have enjoyed when we had the chance.

I like what New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner was quoted as saying in a press release, “Heaven must have needed a shortstop.”

Goodbye Scooter.