There is a sport that has been of medium interest to me for some time, but not enough interest for me to do anything about. I mean, should someone have come up to me and hand me all of the accoutrements that I needed to perform said pasttime, I probably would have accepted them and taken it as a symbol that it is meant to be. But otherwise, my ass really was not on fire to take up the sport.

This sport is golf.

Now, golf has always been a bit contentious to me. I remember my mother and father having terrible rows about golf, since he would wake up at oh-God-hundred on a Saturday and take off for a full day of 18 holes (or however many holes constitutes a whole day, I really wouldn't know this stuff. I guess it also depends on the alcohol consumption at the clubhouse, whether or not there was anything interesting on offer for dinner, and how well you are getting along with your spouse to determine how many holes you play. And as I type that, my head is screaming with immature one-liner comebacks that I will refrain from.) My father used to tell my mother that golf was a way of being outside with nature, to walk and relax. Sounds awfully familiar to the guy excuse that they read Playboy for the articles. Sure. And I go shopping to listen to the elevator music.

Golf to me either smacks of the very posh, wearing weird checked clothing and swirling martinis while talking out the the corner of their mouths, or people along the line of "Caddyshack". I have not been able to get behind the game. My one and only time of exposure to it was a time my father took my sister and I with him, and my sister and I managed to wreck the golf cart (I kid you not. Even at the tender age of 10, it appears I was destined for bad driving.)

It seems like everyone in Sweden plays golf, and they all like to sit around talking about it for hours and hours, throwing around such words as "birdie", "eagle", and "chipped". It amazes me that people can talk about golf for so long. I can't even talk about sex for that length of time, and it's the most interesting subject in the world to me. I remember being at a wedding where the newlywed couple came up with the ingenious idea of separating all of the attendee couples and seating people next to people they had never met. It was an absolute stroke of Emily Post brilliance, and an absolutely fabulous time (can my text be dripping with sarcasm? Can you see it? 'Cause if not, trust me, that's my intent.) I was put next to three men that spent the next three hours talking about their last golf games, good cigar experiences they have had, and the wacky stunts they pulled in the compulsory Swedish military service. I almost killed them all with my bread knife, grabbed the bottle of wine on the table and ran out of the room doing the conga I was so bored.

So I have been resistant to playing golf. Until now.

My partner unit found a driving range literally up the road from our house, so I got dragged there today, finally. He has been going for the past week, and enjoys nothing more than whacking some golf balls a fair distance, in which later a young teenager must collect later in the day. I went there, hit some golf balls for the first time ever, and managed to:

1) get angry with my partner, since I am not very good at taking instruction from him
2) hurt my fingers a lot, since you have to lace two of them in a very weird way
3) finally convince myself that the golf club is not a hockey stick and should not be held like one
4) refrain from striking things with the golf club. Not out of anger, but hey-how can you hand someone a big metal stick and expect them not to smack things around them?
5) threaten the life of the man behind me with my extremely erratic backwards-flying golf balls

I have signed up for a golf lesson next week by an English speaker. I am willing to give this golf business one more try, and if it fails, then it only proves what I have always known-I am really more of a contact-sport person.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 05:05 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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