For many people, golf is a true passion. It is something they think about and something they do whenever the weather is nice. The passion never seems to wane. A forty year old may be bombing 290 yard drives from the blue tees. When he or she is eighty, they are pounding 170 yard drives from the red tees. No change in focus or exuberance. In fact, the eighty year olds are probably playing a lot more golf than they did at forty.
One of my favorite pieces of golf memorabilia is a blue button that I occasionally wear on my golf shirt that says “Golf Is My Life.” For thirty years, four of us orchestrated a small golf tournament for twenty four friends. We picked sites around the country and played 36 holes a day for three straight days. One of the participants, Forest, struck up a conversation with a gentlemen next to him on an airplane. Turns out the fellow passenger was also a golfer. The conversation eventually gravitated to golf. During the conversation Forrest, commented that his travelling companion was really into the game. The man responded immediately, with great sincerity: “Golf is my life”! A perfect summation for the passion of golf. So, Forrest made buttons for all twenty four of us. I still treasure and occasionally wear mine.
For many years, when I go back to my roots in Ann Arbor Michigan, I have been invited to play with a great group of golf enthusiasts. These guys are perfect examples of passionate participants. If the weather is good, they are trying to make it to the golf course. They played in a formal league for years. Every Tuesday night all summer. They formed another Saturday league that teed off just before or after sunrise. In addition, they had a recurring holiday tournament that consisted of thirty six holes on every legal holiday during the warm weather months.
Golf cannot be played without an elaborate betting scheme. In fact, one of my Michigan friends says that he really doesn’t like to play golf but he can’t resist the small stakes gambling. Only one or two people actually know how to administer the bets. Money goes to the low gross scores, the low net scores, the fewest puts, the most greens hit, we may play bingle – bangle – bongo, wolf, vegases, Nassau’s, greenies, sandies, closest to the pin, and skins. Everyone lingers around the nineteenth hole while two CPAs and a computer expert with access to a cray supercomputer tally up all of the bets. You order a beer, another beer, a cheeseburger and another beer while the tabulation is in progress. Finally, the settlement and distribution is completed. If you have a really bad day, you could lose $75 dollars.
The Ann Arbor guys actually developed a facet of betting that I have not seen anywhere else. If you play with them regularly, you can buy insurance that will significantly lessen the impact of a bad day on the course. You put up $20 or $30 dollars at the beginning of the season and if you have a bad day, insurance may pay for half your losses.
Now many of these players are seventy five to eighty five years old. The natural aging process has really diminished their ability to play the game. The fire is still there, however. They are finding a way to get to the course for nine holes, at least once a week.
Let’s take a look at the Thursday outing for four of my friends.
What infirmities are these guys playing over? One of the players has pulmonary and heart conditions that prevent him from walking a lot and climbing even small hills. Another has diminished cardio capacities and can’t walk much farther than 25 yards at a time. One has Parkinson’s disease and the fourth has progressive macular degeneration. There are a lot of joint challenges. Hips, knees, shoulders and backs. All of them and the rest of us over 75 are having some form of cognitive issues.
They have withdrawn from league play because they simply can’t keep pace. They decided that they would try to play nine holes every Thursday. Geologically, Ann Arbor is an interesting place. There are some terminal moraines from glaciers that have created a lot of hills. Most of the golf courses in the city are on pretty rolling terrain. The area thirty miles south of the city spent a few thousand years under a mile of ice. The terrain here is unbelievably flat. You can see the curvature of the earth in Dundee Michigan. So the foursome found a course in Dundee that is totally flat. No small hill challenges for the cardio impaired.
Two of the four can no longer drive a car. Another is an Uber driver and the fourth can drive but is suffering macular degeneration. To verify the cognitive impairment, the selected driver is Gary, the one experiencing macular degeneration. It is not Dennis who is the Uber driver.
During the course of a Thursday outing to Dundee, several challenges arose. A couple lost clubs. They arrived at third tee and found that they only had three players. Dick drove off after playing the second hole and left one of the cardio impaired players on the green. They back tracked and retrieved Tim, the walking challenged competitor. All in all still a great day of golf. No one had to go back to Dundee to retrieve lost clubs.
When he returned home, Dennis noticed that he no longer had his wallet. He called Gary and asked him to check his car, thinking it was probably in the back seat someplace. While Gary was running through the car, Dennis rechecked his golf bag and found the wallet in one of the eight zipper pockets. Gary returned to the phone and said: “I couldn’t find your wallet. I don’t think you lost it in the car. I did find Dick’s wallet however. I’ll drop it off at his place.”
These guys are still at it. Perfect proof that golf is an undying passion. As with all golfers, if the weather is great, this venerable foursome is thinking: “We should be playing golf”!
I resemble that foursome!