A Good Walk, Unspoiled

My first job was caddying at the local golf course the summer after I turned 12. I received lessons on how to carry a bag, where to stand and how and when to pull the flag out of the hole. I earned three dollars for the four hours it took to carry a golfer’s bag over 18-holes. But the best thing about being a caddy was being allowed to golf on Monday mornings.

I cobbled together a mismatched set of clubs and enough balls to last me 18 holes. Typically, I would lose a half-dozen or so due to my horrible slice. Late at night as I lay in bed waiting to fall asleep, I would replay the round in my mind, trying to ferret out the mistakes that caused me to shoot in the neighborhood of 140.

My father was an avid golfer and let me accompany him when he played the nearby public courses with my uncle or my cousin.  Uncle Steve was cool as a cucumber as he consistently shot in the high seventies or low eighties. My cousin mostly scored in the eighties when he wasn’t throwing clubs after a bad shot.  My father was a nineties golfer with a temperament somewhere in between my uncle and cousin.

We would leave for the course early – when it was still dark. Dew was so thick on the grass that they took to wearing golf rubbers over their regular shoes rather than letting their golf shoes get soaked. My father never rode a golf cart. He would pull a cart and practically run between shots, typically finishing a round in less than three hours.

When I became an adult, I finally got around to buying a matched set of clubs. They didn’t do much to improve my game. Over the years, I took a few lessons which helped me correct my slice. But I never improved enough to break that elusive 100. During the 1990s, technological improvements in golf clubs brought graphite shafts and oversized club heads to help hackers, like me, improve their scores. I bought a set of these new, improved clubs. They helped a little; I didn’t hit as many errant shots. But I realized I was never going to get a lot better unless I practiced and played a lot more.

So, I asked myself if I really wanted to spend my time and money chasing around a little white ball for hours on end? I made two lists: 1) What I liked about golf and, 2) What I disliked about it. On the positive side, golf provided an excuse to get some exercise outdoors. But many golf courses now require golfers to ride a cart to speed up play. So how much exercise was I getting?  And when I thought about the frustration of chasing a bad shot, well, the positive aspects of golf weren’t exactly piling up.

On the negative side, a round of golf costs upwards of $100 these days. Sure, I could afford it, but wouldn’t I rather spend that $100 taking my wife out to a nice restaurant? Then, there is the equipment cost. A brand-new driver packed with the latest technology can cost $600. Also, playing 18 holes of golf can often take four hours in addition to the time it takes to get there and back home. Given that I’m fast approaching 70 years of age, do I want to devote that much time to golf when I could be spending it on something I actually enjoy?

I can understand why golf has often been referred to as “a good walk spoiled.” But is there a sport where a good walk is enjoyable? Less expensive? Less time consuming?

A few years ago my son introduced me to disc golf. It involves tossing a disc in the woods or across grassy meadows into a basket several hundred feet away. Like golf, disc golf has discs designed as long drivers and fairway drivers, as well as for closer approach shots and putting. A starter set of discs can be purchased for around $50. And so far, playing a round of disc golf will cost you nothing and can usually be played in less than two hours.

Like any sport, disc golf requires some practice to be able to get your disc to fly like it is designed to fly. Personally, I will never be able to throw a disc over 300 feet like many of the pros can do. And it can be frustrating, such as when my disc hits a tree 20 feet from the tee or when I miss a 6-foot putt.

But I do enjoy a walk in the woods and watching my disc sail through the air, somehow avoiding the cluster of trees in its path. And I appreciate the satisfying feeling I get when my disc makes the chains clink and drops into the basket.

My golf clubs sit in a corner of my basement, mostly untouched for the past several years. I’m not ready to get rid of them yet. But I’m glad to have discovered this new way to have a good walk, unspoiled.