And so, another Saturday, another round of bogey-golf, another afternoon of beers and gaffes and laffs with the usual suspects at The Club, for truly the middle-aged man’s needs are simple and few; give us beer and freedom and golf in God’s Country, and we’ll pay the bills forever.
And yet I was not content. And I remain not content. I am malcontent, if you will, given the scourge of those hyphenated words … bogey-golf.
Nothing wrong with bogey-golf, per se.
If you were once off 32, and have reached the peak of your powers; bogey-golf is grouse. Top stuff.
Nothing wrong with bogey-golf if you’re 80 in the shade, hit straight and putt like a crusty demon.
And nothing wrong with bogey-golf if you’ve only ever been off 18-handicap, and nudge it out there 180-straighty, and wander around in a fugue state of ambivalent hippy man-action.
Knock yourself out, brother Numpsay.
There's plenty wrong with bloody bogey-golf, however, if your hard-capped low mark of 5.7 remains in relatively recent memory, and you still hold affectations to single figure golf, even if, with each brutal round, it feels ever more a Quixotic dream.
In my heart, you see, I should play off six. I would rarely not break 80, and, occasionally, on a day out, sneak up on par or better and 40-some points.
In my head, I should be off nine – the odd birdie, the odd double, the rest equal parts in between. Known as a decent player in A-Reserve. A single-figure man. And people would say, There he goes, that guy, single-figure man.
And yet, according to the cold eyes and brutal statistical reality of the Golflink Machine, I am a soft-capped 14.2. And it makes me sad.
Maybe not sad. Brokeback Mountain was sad. JD Vance is sad. Hindbenburgh Disaster? Sad.
And yet, while my 35 points on Saturday was enough for my playing companions to buy the post-round beers, and won me the fine and princely sum of 45 bucks in our intra-club Ten Dollar Club, there remained lingering dissatisfaction, bordering on shame, that a round of 16-over should actually be considered, you know, good.
Maybe not shame. But I wasn't that proud of it, either.
Several years ago, you see, when child-free, footloose and deeply infected with The Bug, I would play three times a week. I would hit balls at the range, purchase plastic aids for plush-pile putting. I also worked out that the distance my irons travelled should not be measured against the best and most perfect one ever.
And thus, I began to hit greens. And my handicap came in from 15 to seven in maybe three months. I was winning comps, thinking Pennants Golf, even club champs. I was on fi-yah.
So hot was I that I entered a Vardon event, one of those ones for the hot kids and gun amateurs, the ones where the handicap limit is two or something, but they’ll let a seven-marker in if there’s room and the damned fool thinks he can take on Pacific Dunes in a stroke round from the black tees in the boonies, and not shoot 111, as I did, let us never talk of it again but rather commend the bloody-minded bravery of the player who came in with, and had recorded on the whiteboard, the score of 149.
Good times.
Today, not so good, given I play off 14.2, And am coming to the conclusion that given the dictates of work and children and health and going to the footy on a Sunday afternoon to watch the Raiders knock over the Roosters, #UpTheMilk!, perhaps bogey-golf is my lot.
Should I be happy with that? And if not happy then realistic, content, ambivalent, that Golflink, while evil, does not lie, and that as a golfer, you are who you are?
Perhaps instead of angst and unrealism, you should just turn up each Saturday, and enjoy the odd par and three points, the odd double-bogey for one point, the odd birdie putt, the odd biblical disaster in which putting is not required.
Perhaps you should be realistic enough to know that bogey golf is all one can ask if one hasn’t practiced all week, didn’t warm up, knocked off two schooners in the clubhouse, and pulled on the golf shoes as your mates were teeing off at 11:14.
Perhaps you should not be surprised, much less angered, that your fresh-out-the-box $8 Titleist ProV1x hooked devilishly into the mud on one, never to be found.
Perhaps you should just suck it up and be cool.
Well, of course you should, at least on the course. A) because you are that good. And B) Because worms turn, baby.
And your third shot could be a pure hybrid up guts, and your fourth shot could be thin to the back of the green, and your putt for par could be a monster, left-to-right, downhiller from something like 35 feet which breaks easily 12 feet before tipping into the hole and saluting for three points in the excellent stableford system of scoring.
Maybe then your six-iron from the second tee hooks nearly out of bounds, your wedge hits the middle of the green, your uphill 15-foot putt curls right-to-left and hits the flag middle-stump, and drops in for a three and another three points, and you enjoy the groans of anguish from your pals who already know, two holes in, they will be buying the beers today.
Perhaps you should be happy with that. Because if that can’t make you happy, perhaps consider another form of recreation. And a self-administered uppercut.
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