A Good Walk Spoiled

The sun is getting lazy as it rolls its way down the horizon, yawning as the day is coming to an end. The coughing cart I have been sputtering around in all afternoon glides to a halt as I reach for my driver for the last time today. Somewhere in my personalized mp3 world, "Clair de Lune" comes over my earphones and provides an emphatic anthem for the 18th hole.

This sounds poetic does it not? Almost as if I should begin writing emotional haikus and pursue a career as a traveling raconteur.

Golf captivates me.
Aiming for gophers on tees.
I hate those rodents.

I have played 54 holes of golf this week, true story. Hearing that, one would assume that I am halfway decent at this luxury sport. Don't assume anything just yet. I'm no Keith Tronic or Rhinestone Cowboy by any means. I'm a lowly young student of this passion. Somewhere out there, Ashton Casper is laughing at the screen with "I-told-you-so" thoughts scattered about.

With the strike of the club, and the wind at my back I slap the ball so sincerely, with such brute force Bruce Banner might even tip his cap to.

My Boss: "Brock-Smash!"

Call it pure luck, but this may have been the best drive that I have hit in my entire brief career as a low-level golfer. The fact that it landed just 20 yards short of the green on a par four is only going to inflate my ego and give me something to brag about on a Saturday night at Maclaren's pub.

Swamp Thing: "Let me paint the picture for you. The sun was setting, my clubs were sparkling, and I hit a dandy, I tell you, a pure dandy of a tee shot."

For some reason when alpha males go about boasting their personal achievements in life, they have this cluttered impression that their crew of listeners will make note and give their credibility more value. Interestingly enough, is that no one actually does care about anything that you do in your life.

A few moments later, a daringly generous chip shot puts my ball four feet next to the pin. This is slowly scripting to be the best hole of golf that I have played in my life. The ratio between actual skill and pure luck, however, is dangerously unbalanced with the favor being in fluke's court overwhelmingly. The main chorus for "Clair de Lune" begins crescendoing up and down the scales. Don Cheadle, Scott Caan, and Elliott Gould stare into the fountain at the Bellagio.

The sun shines bright on the greens.
I line up my shot.
Curse word if I miss this putt.

For the longest time I sheltered myself with the idea that the best golfer is the person who has the highest score on the card. That's how it works in every other sport isn't it? Whatever team, individual or group has the most of something, usually wins. Therefore, with that logical frame of thinking, I was always the best golfer whenever my friends and I would hit the links.

Funny how I never really heard all of their snickering once all of the strokes were tallied up.

'This is it,' I think to myself as I step up to the withered ball I have been toting for the last three and a half hours. With this birdie of a putt, I will in fact have played my best round of golf period, capping off yet another of the best weeks of my life that my posterity will one day cherish in leather-bound books found in old storage units.

Dear Journal,

I am ****ing awesome.

Sincerely yours,

Swamp Thing

Taking two practice swings and eyeing the hole in between, I go through what I have now created as my pre-putt ritual; something that will be with me until the last time that I ever swing a club. Eyeing the ball with overzealousness, I take a long exhale. The last chords of the song are just wrapping up. Dramatically poetic for this entire moment. Bringing back the head of the putter, I tap the ball towards the goal. My Titleist 4 confidently rolls towards the hole, and just as it is reaching its destination,

It rolls out.

A good walk spoiled, he said?
Who thinks that stuff up?
Mark Twain sure cursed this damn game.