More News From The Sporting Life
One thing I’ve kind of glossed over from last week is my foray into hostile terrain - the Arcadia Bluffs golf course in Manistee, Michigan. That’s not my Buckeye paranoia talking - the “hostile terrain” I’m referring to isn’t Michigan, it’s the golf course. And it’s not at all certain in which direction the hostilities are canted: my artless hacking may be far more deleterious to the manicured climes of a well-designed golf course than its inexorable psychological corrosiveness could be on my delicate sentience. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
As I related earlier, I followed my OSU band reunion weekend with a visit to my client in Milwaukee. And as he did two years ago, my client invited a group of us who work with the business in various capacities to board the corporate plane for a junket to an out-of-the-ordinary golf course. Now, it’s sort of extraordinary that they invite me along at all, as I golf about as often as Britney Spears gives birth. No, actually, not quite that often. In fact, the last time I had golfed was on that trip to Mackinac Island two years ago. But it beats working, so I buckle my seatbelt and ask no questions.
Click any picture to enlarge
Once I get onto a course, I have an enjoyable time. I think this is mostly because I have pretty low expectations. My family didn’t golf when I was growing up (my dad scoffed, “golf is the only game where you hit a ball and have to chase it yourself”), and I never took it up as a young adult, so I have absolutely no context against which to measure any potential disappointment in my occasional outings.
There was a heavy mist hanging in the air when we arrived, and the grass was dew-laden. I later learned that our pilot had loaded extra fuel in case we had to wave off our landing in Manistee, and although we have state-of-the-art avionics on board, we indeed came close to not having the required visibility to land at this airport.
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When I saw that the Arcadia course was on the shore of Lake Michigan, I envisioned a sort of Venetian venue wherein I’d be better off in a kayak than a golf cart, since most of my play would surely be aquatic rather than land-based. This course, however, was wickedly arrayed among moguls of scenic dune and sawgrass. The following are taken from the tee area of two representative holes. The idea is that your ball will magically plop onto that little oasis of manicured green fairway and avoid being swallowed by what we quickly began branding as “moonscape” of grass and sand. The tee shot on the left must cross a deep ravine and travel a pretty fair distance. Perversely, I was the only one of our foursome to land on the green. I was shunned for most of the next three holes.
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As I’ve said elsewhere, no matter how tortured my game is, once or twice in a round steel and flesh will cease their clangorous struggle for a second, and I’ll somehow just smack the snot out of the ball. I’ll stand there gaping at the ball in flight with more wonder than if it was an alien spacecraft. And it’s like a hit on a crack pipe - my spirit will soar and my body will vibrate with endorfins, and for just a brief moment I’ll think, “Damn! I could get good at this!” Just as suddenly, the high is over and I resume my bereft travail.
“Undressing the ball” I think they called it. Our pilot, who wasn’t playing, snapped this photo, perhaps not realizing how much at risk he was even at that angle. It would have been a long bus ride back to Milwaukee. Yeah, I’m wearing sandals. And, yeah, I’m hitting a 2-iron off the tee. Sue me.
