I think it’s a good thing that it takes so long to get to your golf ball to play your next shot.
If the game were more rapid-fire, like hitting baseballs in a batting cage, I don’t think there would be nearly as many golfers.
You slice or hook your drive and you think to yourself, “I might as well quit this game I’m not good at it anyway. You would think as long as I have been playing that I would have picked up something….” and you continue to mutter as you walk to your ball. However, when you reach the ball and it is laying square behind a tree, you think, “You know if I could just hook it around here, maybe, just maybe I could get a bogey. Then you fail to even reach the fairway with that shot you envisioned. Then it starts all over again.
I know of no other game that can evoke those kind of emotions within the same game or round in this case, and often times many times in the same round.
Golf is unique in other ways too. For one, it can be enjoyed by yourself. You can play a round when it is just you and have just as much fun. You are really playing the course more than you are somebody else. A round of four under is a round of four under no matter what. Granted, it can be more fun to take someone else’s money.
If you are throwing the football to yourself in the backyard for a couple of hours, the guys in the white coats come after you and take you off to the nearest mental treatment facility.
Although, I must admit as an only child I become pretty good at inventing little games within all sports to keep myself occupied when my mother thought I should be cleaning my room or helping out around the house. I did manage to break every window except one at the house where I grew up on Andrews Road north of Bellville. I would like to point out I haven’t broken any windows at the house my wife and I own south of Bellville, which is probably a good thing.
I think there are a number of pretty good golf courses in the greater Mansfield area, but some are better suited to my game than others. For example, putting is my greatest strength, followed by my short game. As a result, I love playing Little Apple in Bellville. I have been playing there since I was a kid and it was called San-Dar Acres. It is not a long course, but it has small greens as targets. I once shot a four under par round there, but that was back in the days when I could play a little. On the other hand, longer courses like Deer Ridge or Shelby Country Club are going to eat me up. My 210 to 220 yard drive isn’t going to do me so well there.
Golf can be fun for everyone and I suggest you get out there and play the game. Sure, it can be frustrating at times, but it can be really rewarding too.
When you make that birdie, just for a moment you feel like Jack Nicklaus or Tiger Woods. Okay, it is just for a moment, but there aren’t to many 48-year-old guys that feel like Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron or Jim Brown, even for a moment.
Even if you are terrible at the game you can have fun. A guy I used to work with, Scott Roller, once shot a 113 for 18 holes at Little Apple, that was 51 OVER par, not counting whiffs and penalty shots, but I still remember him having a smile on his face leaving the 18th.
After years of toil and sweat behind radio station microphones, longtime broadcaster, Jeff Swank joined the new generation of sports followers on the web.
Swank launched his internet radio station with nothing more than some wire, a box with some knobs and switches, and an itch to do much more than just scratch the surface of everything sports.
Richland Source is proud to introduce Jeff as a writer focused on high school sports. He will contribute a weekly column and analysis of a featured game of the week from one of our area high schools.
In addition to his work at Richland Source, Jeff provides complete high school sports coverage for over 70 Ohio schools at his web site, http://www.swankonsports.net76.net/.
