In the beginning . . . (cont'd)

The next phase opened in a conference room in a Houston skyscraper.  I was in the company of another lawyer, whom I knew, a couple of accountants and some junior financial analyst types.  The representatives of our respective clients had retreated to their phone booths to confer with their superiors about the progress of the negotiations. Soon, they would come back and we would go off and caucus separately about what was possible, and what wasn't.  But, for the time being, in the hurry up and wait of business transactions, we were in waiting stage.

My lawyer friend opened his briefcase and took out the handle of a golf club, which he began to fondle, gripping it, examining his grip, relaxing his grip and gripping it again.  This went on for a while.  I knew what he was doing because a few years earlier, long before I'd taken up golf, I'd been in the company of a Halliburton CEO (several CEOs before the evil Dick Cheney, who kinda messed up Halliburton before he really messed up our country's international standing), and the guy had been doing the same thing.  I asked him what he was doing, and got a little lecture on the importance of proper grip in a good golf swing, how grip pressure can be varied and so on.  Afterwards my boss elaborated--the man had the habit of playing with his golf grip when he was either bored or nervous, and I could rest assured that, given who I was, I was boring him, not making him nervous.

My friend stopped playing with his grip and looked at me.  Do you play golf, he asked.  I said no, not much, owned clubs, that was about it.  How old is your son, he asked.  I told him, twelve, not a teenager yet.  He nodded.  Earlier in the afternoon we'd been bitching to each other about kids in adolescence and teenage misbehaviors, be they large or small, they are endless.  He spoke again.  You ought to take up golf with your kid, he advised.  He put the grip down.  And got intense.

You'll be bad and your kid will be bad at first, he said.  That will be good, because you'll both be learning something together.  And because he's a kid, he'll get better at it fast than you do.  And he'll like that.  He'll also like driving the golf cart, at least until he gets his driver's license.  And you get out there on a golf course with your kid, if you keep your mouth shut, he will talk.  He will talk about all kinds of stuff.  Shit he would never dream of telling you in any other situation.  For hours.  Especially if you get stuck behind a bunch of really slow groups.  At least, that's how it worked for him and his boy.  They played golf together a couple of times a month, and some weeks it was the only time they were speaking to each other.

So, the advantages of taking up golf again included the possibility of five hour rounds behind slow hackers, and playing really poorly myself.  The payoff was the chance to stay connected to my kid.

It made perfect sense.

In the beginning . . .

I took up golf in the '80s of the last century for the limpest of reasons.  I had joined a law firm, my partners played the game, and a fair amount of our firm and business development activities included or involved golf.  So, over beer and burgers in my backyard, my next door neighbor and I agreed to swap an unused set of golf clubs sitting in his garage for my wife's old bicycle sitting in our garage.   A few weeks later, the bicycle (now his wife's) was stolen from his garage, while the garaging marauders left the clubs (now mine) untouched.  He only commented that whoever stole the bicycle got further on it than anyone had ever gotten with those clubs.

The irons were the 'game improvement' clubs of the era--muscle back irons that helped the beginner get the ball in the air.  Together with a mallet putter and woods with persimmon heads, that made up the bag.  I was in business.  I signed up for a set of lessons from a driving range pro (the younger brother of the famous distance driving champion Art Sellinger).  I participated in firm scrambles and began accepting invitations to client golf outings.  I drank beer during and after rounds, listening to war stories but having the good sense not to inflict accounts of my own travails on anyone.  I learned to pick up promptly when I was out of the hole--pace of play, and all that.  Some of the cart girls, in their tanktops and short shorts, made good eye candy.

It was pleasant.  Occasionally I would hit a nice full shot--off the tee or from somewhere in the rough (maybe a fairway once in a while)--that felt pure with those old muscle back ironss.  I replaced the persimmon head woods with a set of the new fangled ones.  I was innocent enough not to be embarrassed by the sky marks I promptly put on them, though I can't say that I hit them much better than the persimmons they replaced.  Oddly, I found that I could putt, and something about the short game appealed to me.  I was stunned by the quality of golf writing--John Feinstein, Herbert Warren Wind, the British--much better than the general sports writing of the day.  I developed a smattering of golf lingo and a nodding acquaintance with the rules of golf.

After a year or two, it all sort of petered out.  My children's youth sports became a bigger part of my life.  The driving range was sold for real estate development.  I bought a sports car.  I kept going to the firm scrambles and accepting the invites to client functions, but that was about it.