“You have quick hands, you must be a golfer,” the gentleman told me as my finger hit the ‘door open’ button just as the elevator was closing in on him.
“Nah, don’t play much…but I used to love it!” I then recalled those days of pine and glory. I’d light up an Antonio and Cleopatra and lay it on nature’s scalp before swinging away. (I got a special thrill from this, I guess because the cigar was a pure substance of the ground and this sort of connected me to mother earth as well—I GUESS). Then I’d look at those fairways that just begged for a down-the-middle drive and the tall trees and sand traps that inevitably ended up with it.
Yet the game for me was not about the score as I learned early on that golf was not my destiny. Instead, the game was about the sights, the sounds, the feel, even the smells. Who can’t appreciate GOLF AROMAS: fertilizer, fresh cut grass and clubhouse chips, dogs, nuts and nabs! And I couldn’t wait to prance across those cushy soft greens, which were noticeably harder in seasons of draught.
But the most satisfying of all—even better than sinking a long putt—was the sound of that perfect drive off my Ben Hogan wood. Whoosh…THWAP! and about one drive out of twenty the ball’d be where I always looked (I always thought positive): high, down the middle and respectably long. There was nothing that felt as good as a solid wood-on-ball strike… well, I do exaggerate here, there are LOTS of things that are better than that, but it was sweet, as you who golf know.
As a boy I occasionally went with my dad and his foursome. I loved to look at those duck-headed clubs, the shiny shades of wood kept in colorful covers of all varieties. I knew right then and there that one rite of manhood, other than wearing boxer shorts and pleated pants, would be the day I could take a controlled swing with that NUMBER ONE WOOD. Not the 3 or 4 woods, which were fun to swing because they were still woods, yet so much lighter. Nah, they were just tricycles. The big test was the DRIVER!
So it surprised me to learn that you can’t even FIND a wood today—they’re all big ol’ metal heads now. Space-aged titanium and alloys and grotesquely large heads that give golfers a larger sweet spot. Seems golfers are not traditionalists, they just really want the best chance of having the longest, and most accurate drives.
The woods have gone the way of the bat, replaced by today’s technology that either enhances performance or economy. Free markets apply to golf so there are no laws against this kind of progress, nor should there be. Yet like other areas of life where personal values check behavior and choice a collective desire to cherish tradition could bring back the wood.
I prefer to honor the THWAP! of tradition, so I will the wood. Alas, most will ping away and go for the win.
-------------------------------------------------
*ASTERISK*
Today’s athletic feats, be they home run records, field goals or sprints—impressive as they are—must mostly be asterisked for if it isn’t space-age equipment changes, then it’s one of many evolutionary advantages today’s athletes enjoy vis-à-vis yesterday’s legends. These include vastly higher nutritional opportunities, a greater public placement of value (even national pride), hype and DOLLARS on athleticism, as well as a quantum jump in equipment options and technology.
No comments:
Post a Comment