FORE!

So . . . I played my first round of golf of the season this past Sunday morning. Or was it just a half-round? It was 9 holes . . . but on a course with only 9 holes, the Milton-Hoosic Club, a tidy little private course tucked down a side road in Canton, just south of Boston. Considering that I hadn’t even seen my clubs since last August and that I had time to take only two practice swings before I was summoned to tee off, I played okay . . . for the first 7 holes. Then my morning jolt of caffeine began to wear off and my concentration—like several of my balls—wandered off into the woods. As it turns out, we were playing best-ball partners and my partner is a former club pro who has still “got game” . . . so we ended up winning. The thrill of victory included a $5 bet . . . which we didn’t bother to collect: we agreed that we would roll it over into a “double or nothing” round (or half-round) later in the summer with the same two guys who completed our foursome.

Anyway . . . both coming and going to the Milton-Hoosic Club, I drove (no pun intended) within shouting distance—Fore!—of another, literally “storied” (see next paragraph), golf course also in Canton. A 36-hole layout, Ponkapoag Golf Course was built in 1936 by legendary designer Donald Ross. A public course, it is often referred to as a gem . . . but it also often cited as an example of unfortunate neglect on the part of the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation. I’ve played it a couple of times—though not recently—and have mixed memories of some fine holes mixed in among holes in need of serious drainage work.

“In need of serious drainage work”: come to think of it, that is how I might describe a novel in which a version of Ponkapoag (well, it is actually renamed Ponkaquogue Municipal Course and Deli and is relocated to the Boston neighborhood of Dorchester) features prominently. The novel is Missing Links. The author is Rick Reilly, whom I used to admire greatly when he was a feature writer for Sports Illustrated; but when he was given a back-page column some years ago called “Life of Reilly,” he became a caricature of himself as thoughtful commentator on and gifted writer about sports . . . and that’s the effect that reading Missing Links had on me when I took a few swings at it several years ago: it was a mere caricature of good writing. In fact, I found it so bad that it turned into one of those rare books that I just couldn’t be bothered finishing even after committing myself to it. I found the Boston-area local color shady at best and the humor strained, and even the golf sequences (and Rick Reilly does know golf—it’s as a novelist that he’s a duffer) are characterized by more whiffs than solid hits. Maybe it reminds me too much of my own golf game in that last regard . . . but although I know that many readers sing the novel’s praises, I think I’ll continue to take a miss on Missing Links.

Instead . . . I will sit down and re-read sections from a golf book that I truly love: On Golf: The Game, the Players, and a Personal History of Obsession. The book happens to be written by a fellow named Timothy O’Grady (no relation to yours truly, though we are acquainted) and that might have been what drew me to the book in the first place. But what kept me there—and what keeps me returning to it—is the combination of the graceful writing, the deep contemplation of golf as a sport, a tradition, and a culture, and the author’s poignant but unsentimental musings on his relationship with his father, who introduced him to the game . . . and to the love of the game. On Golf should be on every golfer’s bedside table.

I guess that I love the game too—the physical/mental challenge that Winston Churchill once described thus: “Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an even smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose.” But what I love most of all is the camaraderie involved in a round of golf. “Male bonding” happens best in side-by-side—not face-to-face—activities: at a hockey game or a baseball game, on a road trip, on a golf course, maybe even at a rock concert. . . . Mark Twain has said famously, “Golf is a good walk spoiled.” (One of my regular golf buddies once Freudian-slipped on that line, saying something like “Golf is a walk in the woods gone bad”; perhaps needless to say, he had spent a lot of his round that day following stray balls into the underbrush . . .) But it’s not just about a good walk—it’s also about good talk. That’s what keeps some of us swinging the clubs: golf is a good excuse for friends to get caught up with each others’ lives under the guise of being caught up in following a little dimpled ball wherever it happens to go. . . .

So says I? Well, about 15 minutes after I got home from those 9 holes on Sunday, I had an email exchange with my cousin, who affirmed indirectly that playing golf is not only or all about athletic accomplishment. “I need more time to practice,” he admitted trying to explain to his wife, but then added: “her response is that I’ve been playing for 40 years and if I haven’t figured it out yet—I’m not likely to figure it out now! (Sad, but true . . .)”