I'm washing my balls as I write
Since I'm probably the only person I know who posts to Live journal and owns a set of golf clubs, I feel compelled to weigh in on the side of golf. With some determination, training, and a little luck, almost anyone can start a mower, fill an ice tray, or flip a pancake, but none of those things compare with the feeling of crushing a small dimpled ball off the tee. I'm not saying that catching the pancake at just the right moment isn't great, but if you miss it, you just slip it into the middle of the stack. Releasing all of the potential energy from a backswing with some semblance of control . . . it's a thing of beauty, and those last forever, if Keats was correct.
Let's say you're not a Tiger Woods wannabe, with twenty-first century drivers in your bag that would put most airplanes to shame; you still have to contend with dog-legs, water hazards, and bunkers that dare you to misjudge the distance . . .the wind . . . the club . . . or your own swing.
For now, my favorite course is just about any executive with plenty of par three holes. It's not the because I can thread a ball down a narrow fairway with any accuracy. Seeing the green in front of me without any creeks, sand traps, or rotating windmills allows me to relax at the tee, forget about overswinging, and drive through the ball with authority. It's tremendously gratifying, made even sweeter by my inexplicable tendency to hook just about every thing I hit. What can I say, I'm a dead pull hitter.
The wino selling used balls at the third tee of the course I play is continually treated to an underwhelming display of my use of thirty-year-old golf clubs. My irons are blades from an age long before engineers began broadening the sweet spot by playing around with unusual metallic alloys. I replaced the grips, but shafts are original; the seven iron has a wicked curve, where the previous owner must have pulled a Judge Smails at some point. I paid $25 for the set to some guy who who seemed to be planning for retirement by unloading all kinds of stuff on Craigslist, and immediately upon leaving the Kentucky Fried Chicken parking lot, I couldn't shake the feeling that I had somehow just been cheated into paying more than the clubs were actually worth. If I played more often, it might be ironic that my clubs are still better than my game.
I'm wandering from the point, I guess. Most of you are more concerned with the waste of natural resources and non-point source pollution from fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides than my Rosencrantz-and-Guildenstern-Are-Dead-esque predictability of putting the ball on the left side of the fairway off the tee.
I can't defend the decision to use water to keep lawns green in the midst of a drought. Even the economic argument some public officials offer regarding the cost associated with re-sodding fields for schools withers under the harsh light of our drought. Still, if you've read The Botany of Desire, you might expect a question like, "Any of you enjoy french fries?" How do you feel about Russet potatoes in general? Where do you stand on the irrigation debacles in Washington or Oregon? Do you still eat blue berries, green beans, or apples?
The dominant agricultural model at work in America for decades has been to keep crops pretty and raise the yield with almost no thought to the environmental consequences. Draining and polluting ground water, genetically modifying plants; and feeding livestock previously butchered livestock pieces is pretty nasty, but I eat more than my share of the harvest.
Still the obscene excesses of watering golf courses in a drought seems like playing the violin as the city burns down around you, but excess is everywhere in America. Just this morning, I read that Allen "chair-throwing, bowling alley brawler, hit 'em when they're down AND you have numbers on your side" Iverson is suing the builder of his two million dollar 15,000 square foot home at the Country Club of the South for six million dollars in damages. That's obscene, and if Mr. Iverson's attorneys are reading this note, please understand that it was never my intention to impugn the character, motives, or behavior of The Answer.