Summer shorts…

 My girlfriends believe the game of golf is a tedious game of hitting a ball over and over until you put it in a hole. On the surface, that’s what the game sort of looks like. Golf is really a game between your ears.

 How can you explain to a non-golfer the compulsion of trying to best yourself or describe the mental war inside your head, when you know you should lie up and hit the iron, not the driver? Try defining the principal of honesty involved when you whiff the ball and should count the stroke, but nobody was looking. Even if you are only cheating yourself, the game oozes integrity, especially within yourself.

 If you’ve stood on the first tee in the early morning, with the mist rising from the earth, only then can you grasp the primal call to fields of heather and gorse. In the spectacular dawn, imagine hearing the deep, rich music of the bagpipes sounding from a distant hill. The scent of freshly mown grass wafts on a breeze which tickles the skin just enough to produce a goose bump. At that moment in time, before you pick up a club, all is right with the world and golf. Par is possible.

So who really has played on a course with heather? I’ve no clue as to what gorse really is, but five pounds melted from my frame without giving up chocolate. That counts for something. Golf’s not all about the score. The game of golf gets into your head and your heart and must be experienced not explained.

I can’t share golf stories with non-golfing friends. They don’t get it.

I need a golf girlfriend. She can even beat my score and I’ll buy the pints.