Why I write about golf
A short essay on some of the reasons this great game calls me to my keyboard.
It’s April, the sun is shining, the tracks of the lawnmower are visible in the grass, and the Masters is this week, so allow me to write a few words about why this game calls me so often to my keyboard.
“Golf is very best of two worlds: on one hand the best of human vision, ambition, ingenuity and design; on the other the best of nature, because none of it would be possible without the unseen hand of some creator or the billion-year-old unexplainable.”
When I was a young ‘un, our home lay one farmer’s field, one small river, half a dozen stepping stones and a low wire fence away from a golf course.
Something about the place drew me in, but we weren’t members, so I had to find another way.
At 7am on summer mornings I grabbed a wedge and a putter and crept across the river and under the fence and onto the 12th fairway and played a hole.
Those mornings brought the buzz of being alive and outdoors, with the sun above and the grass below, and they brought a separate buzz too: the trepidation of trespass, the feeling of what’s forbidden.
Over time, the realization dawned on me that the golf course is the very best of two worlds: on the one hand the best of human vision, ambition, ingenuity and design; on the other the best of nature, because none of it would be possible without the unseen hand of some creator or the billion-year-old unexplainable.
As I played a bit more, and became a member for a while, I was swept away in the puzzle of trying to find a hole hundreds of yards away in as few shots as possible.
Much later, I learned too how this game manages so perfectly to bring the universal dance between order and chaos to the forefront.
Chaos is your attempt to hit that ball to a tiny spot away in the distance.
Chaos is the unpredictability of anything-can-happen-and-often-does.
Order is getting it to the hole, reducing the limitless array of possibilities to just one.
Order is hearing that so satisfying sound as it hits the bottom of the cup.
Chaos is the madness of stooping to pick it out and walking to the next tee to try all over again.
The Masters in Augusta is one of those great occasions that helps to give a year its rhythms.
Tens of millions of people will tune in and see what drama lies in store, because golf, this ancient dance between the orderly and the chaotic, always has drama in store.
Thirty years and more after I tiptoed over stepping stones and crept under a wire fence, now I get to write here about golf – about the business of golf, about the magic of golf – every week.
And I get to meet and speak with people who also love this game in their own way, who feel their own bizarre buzz when they amble onto a manicured field made out of God’s greatest gift.
And every now and then, at 7am, when I see lawnmower tracks in the grass and the sun is shining, I’m reminded again of everything that lies at the heart of this great game: beauty, soul and the eternal, impossible human quest for perfection.
And when I do, everything in the world seems right, even if it’s just for a while.
Thanks for reading.
Shane