Golf is not for Mastodon Hunters

                   Playing Golf is not for Mastodon Hunters

           The game of golf involves the smooth coordination, of a number of the body’s muscle groups and skeletal complexes, to manipulate a series of high-tech, forged metal irons as they impact on a three inch in diameter, surlyn-covered ball, and propels the missile across a sand trap-laden, tree and water lined expanse of manicured grass, to a small oval of velvet green, with a very small aperture at its base, marked with an eight foot pole, that is topped off with a colorful triangular pennant, in a numbered series of strokes that make up the “par” which is the desired score for that particular one of eighteen holes.

If you never read a sentence this long again, you will be fortunate. It also gives you a hint that the game is much more difficult than swinging an old metal club at a ball and knocking it around some. The high-tech wands are forged of new age metals and have a slanted face that ranges from the shortest and highest lofted sixty-degree gap wedge, to the blunter and heavy-headed driver that has a face in the nine to ten degree range. Utilizing the clubs takes a basic knowledge of the science of ballistics. It is propelling solid objects in gradually descending parabolic arcs at a desired target, integrating the effect of wind, the speed of impact and the desired spinning effect created by the hands when following through the swing after impact. Throwing darts, over a five hundred yard expanse, would be a similar accomplishment. If this sounds like a lot to think about, it is. Golf is as much a mental game as a physical exercise. One pro, whose name I can’t remember, said “golf is a game played on a six-inch field, the space between your ears.” Truer words were never spoken.

It is indeed what a relaxed and easy “mood” can facilitate the classic swing. The lack of tension, in the talented practitioner, allows for the rhythmic flow of the skeletal and muscle groups, to create an elegant array of motion that might characterize the graceful flow of a prima ballerina in a delicately beautiful dance.

And then, there are many of the rest of us, males in particular. Forty thousand years of genetic conditioning have prepped many of us to take up any club and think of it as a giant stone axe, with which we need to swing with as much force as necessary to crack the skull of a charging mastodon. Needless to say, this whole energetic motion is somewhat incompatible with that which is needed to play the game of golf. And while occasionally these “mastodon swings” will connect and send the ball into a low orbit around the planet Jupiter, most will cause a “whiff” or a “top hit” or a grounder, all accompanied by the same curses that the Mastodon hunter used when he failed to knock down his target. Decorum prevents me from repeating most of these.

I have found that many thousands of hours of practice helps counter a grand Mastodon swing. Reiterating a graceful swing over and over again trains the muscles to flow smoothly and aid in propelling the surlyn-covered, spheroid into its parabolic array. That is, on the practice range anyway. It seems that once you step into the tee box, on the number one hole, the Mastodon Hunter wants to assert his dominance and swing for the fence. Sometimes, you can control the beast, other times not. A player with a calm and laid-back nature is better suited for the game. Swinging easily is more natural to him or her. And then, there are some of us who temperamentally are better suited for double-handed, axe dueling or chain saw fighting. The game doesn’t come natural to us. It is a constant struggle, which occasionally results in breaking a six iron over a knee or throwing a pitching wedge into a greenside lake. It might seem silly, but the action is a cheaper and more immediate therapy that seeing a psychiatrist.

I was taken by a recent television commercial ad for golf. An irate golfer approached his car, opened it and threw his clubs angrily in a rage into the trunk, cursing the game and muttering outrage at the inequities of fate that had caused him to take up this silly game. Within a heartbeat, he turned to his buddies and asked docilely, “what is our tee time for tomorrow?” Go figure the schizoid dichotomy.

Still, many of us pursue this challenging game endlessly, hoping for the immediate gratification of the well-struck shot or the happy approbation of peers when a lengthy putt drops into the cup. We are all smiles then, at the wonder of the great game. It is reflective perhaps of our life’s struggle. Sometimes, you eat the bear and sometimes the bear dines on you. Now, what was our tee time for tomorrow? 

                                                   -30-

                                          (834 words)

                                 Joseph Xavier Martin