Meditation 76: Redemption Golf

The game of golf, for those who do not know, is very like life itself. Indeed, for some golfers, it is life itself. You can see them any day of the week down at the golf course. They practice hitting balls on the driving range, talk golf with their buddies, wait to tee off, and walk, or, more likely, ride an electric cart through the 18 holes that comprise a game of golf.  Along the way, they take these odd shaped sticks with metal blobs on the end and try to hit a harmless little golf ball down the fairway to fall, eventually, into a little cup dug into a green of short grass. This little ball is whacked without mercy from one end of the course to the other, and has only a wistful hope of escape by diving into a lake or hiding in the bushes.

Golf is cruel game that punishes everyone, including the best players. There is no such thing as a perfect game of golf. The lowest score ever achieved on any course is only a record waiting to be broken. At the end of the best round you will ever play in your life, you can still say “How could I miss that three foot putt on eighteen?” If you do not know what I am talking about, perhaps you are blest. In any event, golf calls up many desires and emotions from the range of human life. Nearly all human traits, writ small, are to be found in the verbal and non-verbal behaviors that emanate from golfers as they swing their clubs through a round of golf.

There is fear, so much fear. What if I go out of bounds? What if I can’t find the ball in the rough grass? What if I hit the ball yet again into the lake on the third hole? There are penalties for all these misdemeanors, two strokes for out of bounds, stroke and distance for a lost ball, one in and one out of the water. All this adds to your score, and if you are like half the golfers out there who do not break 100 strokes in 18 holes, you are bound to get penalized every once and awhile.

But think about it. What is there really to fear on a golf course? Getting banged in the head by a flying golf ball, struck by lightening, or hit by a club? The odds against these three occurrences are immense. Besides them, I can think of nothing to fear on the golf course, where the grass is green, the birds are singing, the flowers are waving in their beds, and the air smells sweet. If I shoot 105 instead of a 95, is that something to be afraid of? Do I really have to fear that my ball will go in the water, out of bounds, or lost in rough grass? Not really, and yet many golfers are scared that they will hook, slice, dub, shank or bury their shots. And when you see golfers get angry at the ball or themselves, throwing or breaking their clubs, storming off the course, then you see how much ego is involved in these fears. When you hear them bragging about beating someone, or lamenting at a loss, you know that somehow their very egos have been invested in a golf score, which everyone agrees is ‘just a game.’

When asked to define the game of golf, Mark Twain is said to have remarked that golf is “a good walk spoiled.” This about summarizes the state of contemporary golf, with its thick rule book, penalties, traps and so on. The whole game is designed to make you miserable. However, to relieve this fear and put the ‘walk’ back into the game, I have invented “Redemption Golf.”

The basic idea is that you get a second try to hit the ball right, when, by the normal rules, you only get one. This means that you always get a ‘mulligan’ or a second chance to hit the ball off the tee. You get a second attempt to improve your shot when you are within iron range of the green, and a second putt any time you want one. It is remarkable how often the second attempt is better than the first. And then, to combat fear of water and the out of bounds, redemption golf just does not count the penalty strokes. This is a wonderful stress reliever, as is ignoring the lost ball rules when a ball is lost after everyone says it will be easy to find.

One last minor adjustment to rules is that you can always improve your lie before you hit the ball, giving yourself the best opportunity to hit it well.  For notice, it is still possible to shoot a bad score in redemption golf, since you only get two chances. When you see an ‘8’ or ‘Snowman’ on your score card, you know you deserve it. Nevertheless, one’s score does improve in redemption golf, the stress engendered by the rules is relieved, and for me, at least, the walk has returned to golf.