Golf Is A Many-Splendored Thing

I have many questions about golf, which never seem to go away. They are persistent and never ending. They range from intriguing to mundane to funny to frustrating to too esoteric.

For example: What is golf? Is it just a game or is it THE GAME?  How many reasons can a person have for becoming hooked on golf? Two? Three? Four? Five? Is golf a game of confidence or competence? Can golf be both baffling and calming? Is it possible that this13-handicapper isn’t taking the game seriously enough?

I have been asking myself these and other questions in an attempt to find my place in the game. Am I doomed to mid-level finishes in my club’s tournaments for the rest of my life or is there any chance for improvement? And is it possible for me to continue to enjoy the game without having found the answers to my questions? Well, after a fair amount of reading and talking to my friends, it finally dawned on me that every golfer has his or her reason(s) for playing the game. Below are just a few of my favorite thoughts and observations about my favorite game.

Golf is …

• Golf is perpetual loss and rediscovery. – Sportswriter Thomas Boswell (born 1953) 

• Golf is not, on the whole, a game for realists. By its exactitude's of measurements, it invites the attention of perfectionists. – Author Heywood Hale Broun (1918 to 2001)

• Golf is like a love affair.  If you don’t take it seriously, it’s no fun; if you do take it seriously, it breaks your heart. – American actor and playwright Arnold Daly (1875 to 1927)

• They say golf is like life, but don't believe them.  Golf is more complicated than that.  – PGA Tour player Gardner Dickinson (1927 to 1998)

• It is thus a game for players of all degrees and ages; for the veteran of seventy, as for the boy of seven. It cannot be learnt too soon, and it is never too late to begin it. -- Horace Gordon Hutchinson, from his book Golf (1890)

• It is nevertheless a game of considerable passion, either of the explosive type, or that which burns inwardly and sears the soul. -- Bobby Jones, founder of Augusta National

• What other people may find in poetry or art museums, I find in the flight of a good drive. -- Arnold Palmer (born 1929), winner of seven majors 

• Golf is the Lord’s punishment for man’s sins. – New York Times columnist and editor James Reston (1909 to 1995)

• The game of golf consists in playing a ball, in as few strokes as possible, from certain starting places, called teeing-grounds, with various clubs, suited to the nature of the stroke, into a succession of holes cut in the ground at varying distances. -- Garden Grant Smith, from his book Golf (1897, Lawrence and Bullen, Ltd.)

• Golf is just one thing to me – the pure pleasure of the golf swing. – LPGA player Mickey Wright, who won 91 times worldwide, including 13 Majors.

• Golf is a game of days … and I can beat anyone on my day.  – Masters and U.S. Open champion Fuzzy Zoeller (born 1951)

Play Away!

Allan (going into our club’s member-member as a 13>