Surrendering to the seductive charms of golf
by Tavis Newman

When I was a child, I had a home golf set made of shiny yellow plastic. The holes resembled shallow, inverted soup bowls with the centres cut out.

I’d spend hours designing spectacular courses, carving fairways out of the forests that were our living room furniture. 

Often a course would involve both levels of the house. Hole four would include the hazards of golfing down the stairwell and into the basement – definitely a par five.

Other fairways would run straight down a hallway and then have a dogleg into the bathroom. Watch out for those toilet bowl water traps!

The game was challenging in its own rights. Hitting the ball with a plastic putter with just enough force to roll up the side of the yellow cups and drop into the hole without having it ramp off the other side required great skill.

My golfing experience isn’t limited to that childhood game – I also have years of playing miniature golf under my belt.

Yes, I’ve mastered the techniques of getting a ball past the perilous spinning arms of a giant windmill, or tapping a ball just hard enough to sink it in a clown’s nose.

You would think with all those years of putting practice, I’d be a pro by now. But truthfully, mini-golf and plastic putters were the extent of my golfing experience until this year.

Sure, I tagged along with Dad on real courses a couple of times when I was a kid – maybe even hit a few balls – but I’d never really learned the sport. 

So this spring when my brother-in-law phoned and told me he was going to be in town and wanted to go golfing, I knew I was in trouble.

I didn’t want to look like a fool on the course, so I immediately signed up for a lesson.

Keep your shoulders down, keep that arm straight, keep your knees bent because you’re ridiculously tall.

The lesson was helpful, but let’s face it – I still looked like a fool that first time out on a course.

However, it was enough to start the addiction.

All these years, I’d never understood why so many people were fascinated with a game that seemed to involve so much walking and so little action.

It amazed me to see on television crowds of people gathered around a green, clapping enthusiastically for some one-gloved wonder concentrating so hard to sink a ball.

This summer though, I was sucked in to the madness of this fairway treading frenzy.

The frustration of iron-swinging mishaps, dotted with the occasional glory of a half-decent drive, became an addiction.

I spent time on my parents’ farm driving balls into their wheat field, never to be seen again.

I would gaze at golf courses as I drove by with the same glazed look as farmers examining crops.

I discovered that there was no rush like stepping into a bush in the hopes of finding a lost ball, and emerging with three extra.

Several weeks ago, though, an incident occurred that made me step back and examine the direction my life was going.

I was in a store at the check-out till when I noticed a stack of books for sale.

The title frightened me: Chicken Soup for the Golfer’s Soul.

What had I gotten myself into? This sport was huge – it had it’s own Chicken Soup book!

What was this sport all about anyway? What sort of strange drug was this addiction called golf? What was the history of golf? I decided I’d better look into it.

I discovered that although historians accredit the sport to Holland, its development occurred in Scotland, where it was played at least five centuries ago.

Rabbit runs were the original fairways, and players would use sticks or clubs to hit pebbles or leather-covered balls stuffed with feathers into holes.

The game became so popular in Scotland that it was viewed as problematic by the Scottish Parliament. It endangered the public in the vicinity of golfers. It was also luring young Scots away from more noble and practical activities such as archery.

The Scottish Parliament was appalled and passed an ordinance that “golf be utterly cryit doun and nocht usit,” in an attempt to suppress the sport.

Aha! As I suspected, the beginnings of golf were plagued with scandal and disgrace.

But alas, I fear the spread of the sport is now too widespread to fight, so I will give in and surrender to its seductive charms.

Maybe I’ll even dig out that old plastic golf game and set it up around the office for practice.