Erwin McKone's "A Golfer's Carol"

It may have been a bit of undigested hot dog from the turn, a mild delusion sparked from the interaction of the meat stick that had been rolling about in the halfway house for who knows how long.  It also could have been a truely inspired vision, either way, what I saw seems so real that it cannot be ignored.  I had been transported through space and time and the people I met were fantastic, had I been sleeping? The experience of my new aquantences were so real that they consumed me for weeks after the initial interaction.  How could the nature of these things go on so unnoticed?  Enough of that,  I want to share with you my experience with the spirits of the game.

I sell turf chemicals for a living and one day on my route I stopped at the Crooked Creek maintenance building.  Yo, I shouted to Mac. The weathered man shook his head at me and scoffed Ba-Humbug! Golf, you can have the game, and the golfer too;  Silly waste of time!  I used to play, said the keeper of the green, was actually quite good at it.  Made an ace one day on hole six, there was a headwind of about 18 miles per hour, the hole was playing slightly uphill at 185 yards.  I played a fantastic little low liner, the wind grabbed it slighly, making it rise up and lose a little steam.  The ball landed soft, took a couple of hops and fell right into the hole.  I won 8 dollars that day, but I dont have time to play anymore and don't care to.  Now, if you would please, make your way down the road to the next chap, I have plenty to do, I'm here too much as it is and your presence is only delaying my departure.  I looked around at the equipment that scattered the maintenance facility.  The yard was littered with equipment that had once served the course, but was now no longer in service.  

They were no longer golf course equipment, they were gravestones in cemetary that was part golf course, part history lesson.  Mowers leaned to the side of a flat tire, or sometimes no tire, as it must have been salveged to help another piece limp along.  The seats of the equipment had large cracks and exposed the interior foam that appeared dirty and damp.  I recognized some of the equipment of being from the era when I had learned how to operate it.  As I moved through the yard, the greenkeeper quipped, Aye young man, be alert for the ones to come, they have  message for you dear boy, three spirits will visit ye, one from golfing past, one from golfing present, and one from golfing future.Tall weeds grew up and through the equipment, coming through the controls and other openings in a way that claimed them as part of the yard now.  

I got into my truck and drove down the road where I found the entrance to a nice little nine hole course.  It seemed familiar, and I drove in. I decided to check out the quiant little place, not at the mainteenace facility, but the course.  Down a little hill from the parking lot on my right was a fairly large driving range.  A man was giving a young lady a lesson.  They appeared to be having a good time of it, and with every ball that was hit fairly well, you could hear the approval in her pleasant chuckle.  To my left was a clubhouse, the golf shop was situated at the bottom of the hill in the lower level of the clubhouse.  I picked up a scorecard and was met by an interesting character.  He wore tweed pants and a white cotton long sleeve shirt.  His golf shoes were also vintage, wingtips, perfectly shined.  "Dont let the yardage fool you dear boy.  There it was......the dear boy addage, this must be the spirit of golf past I thought.  Par 34, 2593 yards, she will make you hit every shot in your bag. Low runners, high cuts, mid draws, bump and run, we have them all!  What an amazing game, do you have time to knock it around he asked.  All of a sudden we were in the fairway of the fourth hole, next to us was a bell for allowing the group behind that it was safe to hit the blind tee shot that was before them.  What type of shot are you going to play?  As I looked up to take in the situation before me, I heard a thump, he had thrown down a Balata golf ball.  The iron now in my hand was an old blade.  I winced at the thought of hitting that shot thin, the way the club would sting my fingers and the cut that would surely happen to the tender balls cover.  What is wrong, the spirit asked,  you golf dont you?  I was looking around and suddenly I could see the whole golf course.  Every golfer was walking, some carrying their bags and others using pull carts.  I could hear every foursomes conversation, their laughter and happiness brought me immediate joy and we began to fly over the course. 

We found ourselves about one hundred and fifty yards off the tee and only about 40 yards offline.  I motioned the spirit to move out of fear of being struck by a wayward ball and the spirit laughed.  Laddie, he said, shots that are mistruck in the past don't travel so far off line, thats the beauty, we can play the game safely on small parcels of land without great danger.  The game regulates itself.  Enjoy, and watch the play.  I began to listen and each player was busy imagining the ball taking all types of flight patterns and being great artists with the tools they carried.  Yardage was important, but took a back seat to the other factors of the game like lie, wind, elevation, obstacles, and shot shape.  

The golf course became alive as the players imagined shot became a stunning visual arc of amazing color.  The arcs would begin from the spot of the ball and follow their imagined path until it reached the intended target.  Some of the arcs were brilliant bright lights while others flickered or where dim in spots.  The ball followed the bright arcs and faultered with the dim and flickering arcs.  What you are seeing in these colors are the players imagination my boy, that is what is needed to play the game, you can't hit what ye don't or can't see.  The spirit continued, the seeing begins before one puts the ball into play.  At once I could see the different body shapes of players hitting a majority of shots with a certain type of arc.  So there is no correct way to play, I asked?  If you are asking about the foundation of golf, yes there is, we all need the foundation, just like building a home, but once you have the foundation, you can be as creative as you want and build many an interesting forms on that form.  At that moment, the contours of the course became alive with great contrasts.  The playing surfaces of the golf course was brilliant and the mounds and the valleys appeared to almost glisten.  I felt as if I was inside a painting of a golf game that was fluid and alive.  I could see and feel the creativity.  The wind even seemed to have a visual presence, I could see the firmness or the softness in the surfaces.  The game became more than a game, it was a work of art, it was the manifestation of the creativity of all the golfers on that course.  The more the people played and howled the brighter the golf course, the arcs, the wind, and the surfaces gleamed.  

This was the spirit of golf past, imagination and creativity built upon a solid foundation of absolutes.  The game resembled life.  Overcoming obstacles, taking alternate routes to gain advantage, executing a great shot only to experience the rub of the green, a bad bounce or unfortunate lie, acceptance of the unfortunate and the resolve to do it again.  Play was the spirit of the game.  The spirit showed me to all types of courses; most that are rare now, some small par 3's where children and beginners would roam.  The courses were maintained different, mowers called gang units mowed the turf with great efficiency.  One man could mow all the fairways in the morning and still mow some rough that day.  The golf course superintendent would wave at us, stop and hit a shot, smile and get back to tending the course.  

We made our way back up to the clubhouse, the range was now full of players beating balls, more serious this time.  I glanced back at the clubhouse and the spirit was gone.  The landscape was beginning to change, the bright arcs and surfaces were dimming, and the arcs were similar in their trajectories and less interesting.  As I looked around I saw a golf cart approaching, the driver had short hair, wore slimming slacks and a tight button down short sleeve shirt.  I had to make a quick move to avoid being hit by the cart and it came to an abrupt stop.  "Hop in," the driver barked, and off we went.  Bounding down the course, the clubs rattled and banged as the cart jarred us over the terrain.  What happened to the colors, I asked.  The colors? Oh ha ha the driver laughed.  Just then a ball went shooting by the nose of the cart, just missing us.  I took a quick look around and couldn't make out the origin of the projectile.  The ball happened, said the spirit.  Golf lost its way.  The golfer, doing anything they can to make the sightest advantage to make up for a lack of talent, believed they could buy their way into good golf.  The demand for all types of equipment improvements changed the course of the game in addition to those whom were able to play the fine game.  I figured I was now with the spirit of golf present.

The change in the colors is from the ball and equipment I asked?  Sort of, he said, you see, the ball and the equipment changed the game.  Made it about power and distance.  It was no longer the creative endeavor that it was.  "Coming through!" a group of golfers yelled as they passed us by in the golf carts.  Balls that fly further mean that we need more land to play the game.  Old courses like this are losing favor and are a little dangerous.  Fore!! another ball whizzed by.  Golf is no longer played, he explained, it is to be overcome.  Par is the standard, and anything less is a failure.  Golf frustrates more than it fosters.  Hazards are deemed fair or unfair.  Straight and long is the desired way to play, and many consider it the only way. 

Suddenly, we were on a plot of land surrounded by survey stakes and excavators.  Fear not! We are making  more golf courses see.  All around me were developers talking about how much money they could demand for a parcel that was now going to be a golf course lot.  We will clean up, one man said.  I can get almost twice as much for this one by the pond!  The golfers were all in carts and one group who was walking was being harrased by a group that passed them as they were walking to the next tee.  Hurry up they shouted!  Jump on the back one man exclaimed!  The distance between the previous green and next tee appeared as a giant chasm spanned by a dark rickety bridge.  The course appeared in detail but not the same as before, bunkers had gold edges, and flower beds sparkled with great color.  Gone were the fantastic arrays that the players imagination produced and they were replaced with the rainbow of color from the mist of a fountain in the pond and the dazzeling white sand.  Also missing was the roaring happiness of the golfer.  Mutterings of slow greens, unfair lies, and inconsistent bunkers replaced the chuckles of a ball well struck.
 

What we used to accept as nature is now scorned as imperfection the spirit said.  When the golfer began to chase the dream of scratch golf by buying his way to par, the only thing left was the rub of the green to dash his hopes of golf perfection.  The spirit of the game was lost, it resembles a game in a way, but much more serious.  The play in the game is gone.  The greenkeeper whom I had first met could now be overheard talking to a well dressed man who was very irritated.  When the game gets more expensive, people find more ways to communicate their disdain.  Its not that they are angry for any particular reason, they are angry for all of it, and they dont even know it.  The greenkeeper seemed beat down, he was sweating from the heat and carried his head low.  His family was driving past and came to a stop, the youngest child ran from the car and gave the man a great hug, we will miss you dad, the child sighed.  The greenkeeper smiled and wished them all a great vacation and asked them to send pictures of their adventures.  He must stay here said the spirit, any blemish in these bunkers or surfaces, no matter how temporary, may result in his dismissal.  How can such a beautiful game that brings people such joy like that of the nine hole course treat someone so poorly?  I mean, it is just a game isnt it?  Quiet!!! The spirit screeched, have you no disdain for complacency?  We push that fellow to do more, to make it better, to work harder, to do more with less.  Surely he works within the confines of the resources he is presented with I uttered.  What are the parameters of the job in which he can do?  Certainly a factory can only produce a number of widgets, how can a lone man accomplish what an entire corporation cannot?  And what about the burn-out of the human condition?  We know that more than 55 hours per week hurts a mans health.  It was obvious that the spirit of golf present was agitated and seemed less like a golfer than the spirtit of golf past.  

The golf course was also maintained very differently now.  Gone were the simple machines called gang mowers.  Equipment appeared angry and expensive.  The work force at the golf course needed many more people to tend to the property.  Maintenance buildings had to be bigger in order to store all the equipment.  The grass was cut much shorter now and needed more inputs to make it healthy.  As we passed by the maintenance facility, lines of salesman selling fantasic tonics with outragous claims lined up outside the greenskeepers door.  Everyone was in on the money game.  The greenkeeper, desperate to keeep the golfer happy, was pooring every tonic he could grab and feeding the course.  The University Professor worked along side the tonic salesman and some seemed to have trampled the scientific method in the process, they stuffed their pockets with the cash that the tonic salesman slid to them backhandedly.  Golf ball makers, equipment manufacturers, and the golfer collaborated to create an environment that would change golf and put it on a path of extreme percieved advancement which was directly at odds to inclusion, preservation, and growth.  Advancements in relation to distance that the player could advance the ball, had safety issues for the smaller courses. One doesnt have to be a golfer to understand that a course that required players to constantly be "on alert" for wayward shots, wouldnt be much fun to play.  

It became apparent why the golfer was angry, the spirit explained further,  when the game becomes something other than play, confusion and frustration replace absolute joy.  The spirit explained that the increased cost, not only in money, but time, held the game hostage to produce the feelings of play, which it couldn't, because too much was at stake.  We realized, the spirit said solemnly, that true play, does have a limit on the amount of money spent to do such a thing.  Once humans invest a great deal into an endeavor, expectations take over and become the priority.  It's no good thing to invest lots of time and money into something only to have it let you down.

Before I let you go, these are the things to come if golf doesn't change a thing.  Soon we were transported to a beautiful golf course.  Outside the gates of the course, the city looked dismal.  Only the elite are allowed in.  The game is not for everyone.  There was one road into the course and there was a great toll to pay if one wanted to come play.  The course was empty.  The courses that were developed for as housing devolpments were walking paths.  Lawsuits and injuries made smaller courses impossible to manage finacially.  That is not the worst of it, he said and pointed to a generation that was wandering through the overgrowth of the failed properties.    

And just like that I found myself alone with a bucket of golf balls.  I picked up the iron on the ground and like I had so many times, decided to pick a target about 120 yards away, visualized the shot of left to right, low and spinning hard.  I exhaled and let the expression of my sadness go as I played that shot.  I realized golf had another spirit to come, the spirt of golf future, and that is when I heard a voice say "well done."  If you can visualize that shot, then you can visualize a different future for the game.  What?  I asked.  The spirit shook its head and explained, the beauty of the the game is the visualization, the seeing of something that is not, but could be, that gives humanity a great gift.  To be able to see differently, that there are many ways, not just one.  In golf, the true spirit is a few routes, some more conservative, some more adventurous, it is up to the player.  Hazards will come before you, you take them as they come, and do your best to avoid them, as the good Dr. MacKenzie suggested.  

So what is it you see for the future of golf, the spirit asked?  I paused, and with tears forming, I began.  I love this game, I love what it can teach those in the disadvantaged and advantaged neighborhoods alike.  I believe it can be a blueprint for great communities and great individual growth.  I believe we have good people in the game that would agree of putting people before profits.  I believe somewhere there is a golf professional with the character similar to Arnold Palmer, who used to make free video lessons for people learning the game.  I believe that the creativity of golf makes it special and worthwhile.  With that, we were transported to the course that was in my imagination.

We found ourselves at a famous inner city country club, which had stuggled in the past due to the flight to the suburbs.  It was an impressive layout with a great deal of history and tradition.  Like most country clubs, this layout, contrived with the spirit of golf past, was only for the community elite.  You purchased this club with a grant, the spirit said, take a look around.  What was now in front of me now however, was an inclusive community facility.  The "members" were just community indidivuals, and everyone, no matter what their ability to exchange monatary units were invited to partake in the great layout.  Those who couldn't afford membership in a traditional way, exchanged time or talents.  Money, time, and talents all function to fullfill the contribution to the facility.  I was experiencing a golf facility promoting honesty, integrity, inclusion, standards, and civility.  The grounds were properly cared for with much pride, more pride than maybe any golf course ever.  The only gangs around the property were the ones mowing the fairways and rough.  Everyone who was playing or practicing was doing so with replica wooden shafted clubs.  Equipment technology is fine, said the spirit, it just doesn't have a place here.  The focus at this facility is on creativity and solid shot making.  Modern equipment is just false hope the spirit added.

Proudly displayed at the entrance to the property was the community fellowship policy.  The fellowship policy outlines the rules if you will.  The state of civility that the facility will maintain and the consequences for any violation to the fellowship policy.  There always has to be some skin in the game to be a part of a community the spirit said.  Speaking of the fellowship policy, I said, it is a construct for sure and we have to find a way to have consensus and still keep those with a voice to be heard.  Golf is truely a special game and affords us a conduit into the human condition.  The spirit smiled at me and said, this is a true community space where the hard discussions of race, gender, and appearance are conducted, respected, and promoted.  What would be a more perfect space, than a space that served the community elite in the past?  A place that was once a symbol of exclusion and not of inclusion.  

Here, the game of golf is teaching the core values of life in easy to understand and promoted ways.  Golf as a manual to life is springing forth, and literally changing lives.  Here we understand the importance of play and the role of games as play.  Play is so essential to human connection and the current atmosphere of organized sports in society has essentially ruined the concept of play.  Lost is the concept of play as it has been tossed into the shadows of win / lose.  Golf is in a unique position to not only revitalize play, but lead the charge and bring about change in other sports to reincorporate the very nature of play.

What this facility is all about is focus, aiming at a target with intent.  In golf, hope and fear kill more great golf shots than anything else (I believe is a Moe Norman quote).  What more is there to life than focusing on a target and encountering obstacles along the way.  Here we teach people to realize that hope ard fear are mechanisms that destroy the ability to execute.  They are thiefs to the attention that is needed to execute.  These little monsters serve zero purpose in execution, they only distract and take away.  They add nothing to the forward progress necessary in the journey towards ones purpose.  Tranforming thoughts and the approach to life's problems through the game, golf can literally transform lives, communities, and society.  Golf can be either as small or large as it wants to be.  The "leaders" of golf can determine what they really believe golf to be and their vison will be the one that is manifested and lived out.  Luckily, for golf, it is not limited to the governing bodies.  Golf is left to the forces of the souls of indiviuals who carry within them golfs great lessons and passion.

At your facility the spirit said, golf teaches cooperation, humility, hard work, never say never, peace and quiet, make the best of each situation, don't worry about the past, nervousness is normal, vison is necessary, follow through, balance, and intent.  Communities will be forever changed by the this spirit of golf.  

The tears of joy in imagining what the game is capable of woke me from my nap, that and the burning in my stomach from that terrible hot dog.

Cheers,

Turf