Chuck: The morning sun shined brightly. So did my optimism. Utah's winter had freed its golfing prisoner.
Armed with a new offset driver and three months worth of tips gleaned from my Golf Digest bathroom instructional series, I eagerly approached the first tee at Tooele County's Overlake Golf Course.
But when it came time to swing like a Tiger, I bent it like Beckham instead — sending an innocent Titleist hurtling into aptly named "rough," which I'm pretty sure has been used before as a location for filming episodes of TV's "Lost."
Mental memo: Breathe, man. Relax. You can still scramble par here.
Amy: Golf is an interesting sport because you can play, and I use that term loosely, well past your "prime" — although I admit some of us don't reach "prime" until we're the oldest athlete in the race. My strategy is just that. Be the last one running. I figure that life will beat up my competitors and one by one, they'll turn to watching "Lost" or "24" and meanwhile, I will just keep moving. Eventually, the blue ribbon will be mine.
Chuck: If they're watching "Lost," have them look for my ball.
Amy: I'm going to resist ... I heard the perfect sentiment about golf in a movie Friday night. Golf isn't a sport; it's an obsession.
And why is that? Because anyone can play, and most everyone does.
Now if only those fellas strutting 'round the golf course actually realized their delusion of athleticism is just that — a fantasy.
Chuck: Praises be to the weekend legions of John Daly lookalikes. Forget skinny elitists like David Duval who think the super-fit should rule golf. If he's so fit, why has he fallen from No. 2 to No. 363rd in the World Golf ranking? Maybe he should treat his inner fat man to a Snickers.
British professional Lee Westwood said it best, "If I wanted to be an athlete I would have taken up 400-meter running . ... I'm a professional golfer."
Hackers like myself don't claim golf is a sport — at least not in the freakish sense of the NFL or NBA. At best, it's a mercurial skill that can be harnessed temporarily, but never fully mastered. At worst, it's four to five hours of male bonding on sod.
Besides having played the game for nearly one-third of a century, I know what path my season will take. There will be a handful of days when I feel and play Tigeresque — or at least Mickelsonian. There will also be correlating days when all of the game's nuances seem completely lost in translation. In between will be most days when I manage to mix and match the two extremes to create something I've come to entitle: Abject Mediocrity.
Mental memo: Up and down in two from here can still salvage bogie.
Amy: See, this is what I'm talking about! Do you see planes? Mr. Roark? Attention, readers, we're on Fantasy Island!
(And we did not ride the Love Boat to this Island of Desperation.)
Those addicted to this sport, and believe me, it is a disease, ride in a cart and break a sweat because it's 90 degrees and somehow this makes them feel like athletes. It is amazing! If you really want to feel like an athlete, put on some pads and take up over-40 football.
Chuck: It might surprise you that many of us land whales don't mind hoofing it around the course using modified three-wheeled baby buggies that you running snobs invented. And don't worry, my heart gets a major workout each time I chunk a chip or pooch a putt.
Mental memo:A double-bogie is still managable; a par will balance it out later.
Amy: Here's the other aspect of a leisure activity like golf I don't understand. Why do you get mad? So you stink. I stink at softball and soccer, so when I strike out or whiff a shot on goal, I laugh. It is for fun and I am, as you said, mediocre. The anger can only be born of hope, and I have news for all of you weekend golfers. There is no hope to be had.
Mental memo: At least you're on the golf course and not the couch. The only thing worse than a mediocre player who gets mad at reality is a couch potato who yells at the television.
Chuck: I come by my mediocrity honestly, having long ago renounced most Mulligans. But I challenge your notion there isn't hope for players of my ilk.
Thirty years ago I was a "horrible" golfer. Twenty years ago I'd improved to "lousy." Ten years ago I was merely "bad." Nothing like progress.
Truth be told, there's little we 14-handicappers can control on the golf course — except anger — which would be so much easier if I could only play with pre-lobotomized golf balls that didn't always seem to have minds of their own.
Mental memo: Focus on this putt. Don't let triple-bogey turn into a quad.
Amy: Why do you even keep score?
Don't tell me you're playing for money. And don't tell me you engage in trash-talking. Golfers are not allowed to talk trash. Like I said, their sweat is induced by the weather, not their effort. No sweat, no hitting, no trash-talking.
What kind of sport requires fans to be silent at the most critical times? Mental toughness is making that putt while some idiot is screaming at you.
Chuck: That's right, deary. I save that pent-up trash talk for you.
I must say there's something cathartic about taking a quadruple-bogey and then flinging your putter farther than your previous three drives combined. Plus, the rest of the round can be devoted to honing one's mediocrity unencumbered by something as potentially stifling as a score.
Carding a quad also presents a clear chance to improve. It only takes an eagle and two birdies to turn that quad into a par, you know.
Hmmm.
Mental memo: Maybe it's time to take up bowling.
Amy: If you take up bowling or archery or anything else that might fulfill your need to flex those (non-existent) lats as you walk by pretty young ladies, just please remember — you are not the real deal. You're a blue-light special.
Going fast but furious in that good night.
And I do believe that even on your worst day, that is something to be proud of. FORE!
E-MAIL: adonaldson@desnews.com E-MAIL: chuck@desnews.com