Bill's Bulletin Board
By Bill Rea

This is one of those times when I have to be upfront about something.

Tiger Woods I ain't.

I enjoy golf, or at least certain parts of golf, but I stink at the game. I mean really stink. In the crude sort of language that is in common usage these days, I suck at golf.

I have only played a couple of rounds in my life, and it is quite true that I have never broken 90, and I'm talking about the front nine. I seldom get very far into the back nine before I forget about the frivolous little things of the game, like keeping score. There's only so much bruising my ego can stand.

It may be a case that athletic prowess runs in one's blood.

My late father was a natural athlete, who I don't think was ever able to grasp the idea that he could produce offspring that wasn't. My brother was pretty good at sports too. But as far as I was concerned, well some people were born to build benches and some were born to keep them warm. Guess which group I belong to.

Being the top athlete he was, my Dad was able to hold his own at golf, although the truth is he often went a number of years between rounds. He had his own set of clubs, and I remember, as a very little kid, wondering what that strange bag in his closet was for.

There were attempts made to teach my mother to golf, under protest at first. She eventually lightened up, even agreeing to keep the small set of clubs Dad bought her for Mother's Day one year (she was not pleased at the time). She eventually signed up to take lessons, and later amusedly told the story about how the instructor gave up on her, determining she was unteachable. I apparently inherited my golfing skills from my mother's side of the gene pool.

I have had a bit of instruction. There was a period of about two weeks when I was in high school when golf was the main item on the lesson plan in gym class. I think that after that fortnight, I had mastered the grip the instructor gamely tried to teach me (or maybe he told me I had mastered it just to make me feel good).

I really didn't care much about golf in the years that followed. But there was that one day about 20 years ago, when the people running the company to which I was indentured at the time, announced arrangements had been made for staff to take part in some tournament that was being hosted by one of the other companies with which we were affiliated. Several in our office signed up, and not wanting to be the odd man out, I joined the group.

I had to rent clubs. Although I am normally right-handed, when it comes to brandishing a golf club, hockey stick or baseball bat, I'm a lefty, and in the interest of consistency, I should report that I have always stunk at the games associated with those those three items. As a result, my parents weren't able to help me out by lending me their clubs.

As has been the case with any other time I've tried to golf, I stunk the joint out. Fortunately, the other three members of our foursome (a woman from my office and two guys neither of us had ever met before) weren't much better. Thus the four of us spent a very enjoyable day making fools of ourselves. And as we all offered each other helpful golf tips and observations that none of us were remotely qualified to make, we did manage a couple of gems.

After three dubious shots on the first par-5 hole of the day, I approached my ball, astutely reasoned the threeiron was the club for the situation (as if that was going to make a world of difference), and loudly proclaimed to my companions, "This is for a birdie."

It was just one of those moments that each of us should have more of. It was the first decent shot of my life, as the ball flew to the green as if it had a navigator on board. It came to rest just a couple of feet from the hole, and a few of minutes later I was celebrating my first quadruple-bogey ever.

Later, after all the participants in the tourney (about 40 of us) had completed their rounds, we were all assembled on one of the par-3 tees to see who could drive a shot closest to the hole. When my turn finally came, I stepped up, silently prayed for minimal humiliation to be the result of what was to follow, and let fly my best shot of the day. I wasn't closest to the hole, but I came in third in that contest, earning bragging rights that I wisely elected to use with utmost discretion - in other words, I kept my mouth shut.

But those two moments touched off an interest that has never completely gone away.

As I said, I've only played a few rounds in my life, notching up scores that could teach anyone a sound lesson in humility, if I even knew what the scores actually were. The one time I sort of kept track of my performance was the first time I played a round with my wife.

The resort where we vacationed one year had a small course, and I was game to give it a try. Beth, who I don't think had never held a club in her life, wasn't quite as enthused, but I was eventually able to persuade her to give it a try (I don't think I had to resort to tears to do it).

The upshot was Beth, who gripped a golf club as though it were a hockey stick, ended up beating me by five strokes. It was that evening that she learned several implications associated with the male ego.

But even that has not destroyed my interest in golfing, although as I stated above, there are certain points of the game I really enjoy. The best part for me is driving. The fairway game and putting is okay, but I almost regard them as necessary evils; part of the price I pay for the fun of standing at the tee and whacking the you-knowwhat out of the ball.

My hat is off to whoever it was who invented the driving range. In fact, there is one that's more or less on the route between my home and office, and I've fallen into a bit of a habit of stopping there on the way home and spending about 15 minutes sending about 30 balls flying off somewhere. It's almost therapeutic after a hard day.

For a while, I was quite intrigued at the way the wind would alter the trajectory of my shots. And then I realized that the wind had nothing on my tendency to slice.

I even have my own clubs now. Not a fancy set, mind you. Just a secondhand set that I picked up at a sale in Kettleby last fall for the extravagant sum of $10.

It doesn't even have a putter, but who needs one of those on a driving range?

Besides, I'll get around to acquiring a putter in due course.

And I do believe the practice I'm getting is improving my driving. Who knows? Maybe the next time Beth and I play, I'll win.