This week, weather permitting, many of us can take up where we left off last October: trying to remove our frustrations by hitting a little ball as hard as we can.
Time to return to the links. Time to remember there might be ladies within earshot, or the clergy, and to civilize our tongues.
Time to get back to blaming the wind, mowers, pin placers and the inconsiderate ignoramuses who insist on talking, coughing and moving while we’re in our backswing.
Whoops! Remember, you promised to try the calm approach this season.
Did you know the game of golf grew from players hitting a pebble around a natural course of sand dunes, rabbit runs and tracks using a stick or primitive club?
That was in 1421, but that game was missing the vital ingredient that is unique to golf . . . the hole. In Scotland the game was played with the hole, thus it is credited with being golf’s birthplace.
I think I would have liked the Scottish parliament of King James II. He ban the sport in 1457. Then King James IV took up the sport, and voila! We have millions of frustration links around the world today.
Has there ever been a history come out of Europe that the French didn’t sneak into? The word caddie comes from the French military, known as cadets.
The main reason I don’t join friends in warmer climes and get out of Michigan’s winters is that I would be expected to play golf. I believe in six months on and six months off. My mind and body need time to heal, time to revert to reality and time to realize there is something else to revere than hitting a little, dimpled ball.
For six months I blame my poor game on events in Washington and Lansing, then I take six months to play golf and become more rational. But it’s getting so I’m finding the time between those powers isn’t enough.
Sitting here now, in April, I’ve got the world by the butt, on a downhill drag.
I just know, though, that come next Thursday’s tee time my blame game will start all over. I’ll go back to the frustrations with my life being DC’s, Lansing’s and golf’s fault, and vice versa.
It’s been happening to me since I started playing golf as a caddie at Owosso Country Club in 1943. If I’d known then the word caddie came from the French
I’d have not started the game, thus avoiding so many sand bunkers, waters and woods. I’d be sane today.
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? ‘Cold callers,? you know, phone solicitors, have found another way to upset me. The phone rings, I answer, ‘Hello? and no one responds. I repeat hello a few times, then a female voice says, ‘Bye.? Someone told me the caller wants to leave a recorded solicitation, not talk to a real person. Jerks!
? An active, local car dealer told me recently that Obama’s Cash For Clunkers program is costing every taxpayer $6,500. Is there ever an up-side to these programs?
? Tube statement: ‘Fidelity is doing more to help peple reach retirement than anyone else.? How about the physicians? How about the calendar?
? If at first you don’t succeed, look in the trash bin for the instructions. I did that this week.
? Will Rogers said he was able to tell the truth because he never mixed up in politics.