As I mentioned in my first entry into this journal, I was the grounds manager at Detroit Country Day School. Many of the coach’s and teachers there played golf, and they asked me if I played the game too. “Nope” I told them, “Golf is played on pussy grass, and I’d rather spend my time fishing”. “Pussy grass” they asked me, “what the heck is pussy grass?” “It’s a grass that has to be manacured and tended to each and every day, and then chances are, you won’t get anything out of it”. Over the years that followed, I began to watch the game, not for what was happening, but what it was happening on. I would start watching the match’s when they’d start to play in January, out in Hawaii, just to look at something green. By that time in the year, nothing was green in Detroit and just the sight of the differnet grass’s would satisfy me. I’d watch as they played in California, then Arizona, and on to Florida and Georga. By the time “The Masters” was shown, it was bairly green here and down there the azalia’s were abloom. What a beautiful sight.
As the years went by, I became interested in the game itself and in 1997, my oldest son gave me a set of used clubs for Christmas. I remember everyone else was in the kitchen helping their mom cook breakfast, when I decided to give my 1 wood a swing, just to feel what it was like. Everything was fine until it came to the backswing. I clipped the globe and there were shards of glass everywhere! I should have taken that as an omen and just put the things in the closet where they belonged. I didn’t though, and come Spring I was out at “The Mallard” trying to figure out how to play that game.
After several trips out to the driving range, I figured I wasn’t dangerous enough to really hurt anyone and played my first game. I’d gone out with my second oldest son, and he assured me that the rules were different there and I’d do just fine. “The Mallard” is a nine hole course near East Jordan, and was built by a native here who understood his clientell. You don’t have to wear slacks, nor a button down shirt, in other words, its a “blue collar course”. Real, everyday people can play there, and what’s even better, you know a lot of the people who are playing there. Matt told me of a few other “rules of the game” too; if you hit it into the rough, it’s ok to just kick it out onto the fairway and take it from there, no penelty. “Well” I thought, “it must be because of the damage that would occur to the wildflowers alongside the couse”. From that line of thinking, I came up with a few other rules. If one hits the ball into the pond, it’s because God wanted it there to help create bottom structure for the alge to grow and thrive upon. Since it was God’s idea, not only should one be penalized for it, we should be awarded a stroke instead! If you hit one into the trees, it’s because mother nature wanted to provide an adopted egg for some poor turkey mother who’d lost hers to the coyotes. Again, it’s a bonus for the player. Should a ball land in the mud, it’s ok to pick up the ball and wipe it off, but there’s a catch here. You have to make sure the soil goes back into the hole where it came from. Yep, “soil reclemation”, but there isn’t any bonus here. Soil Conservation is EVERYONES responsibility. Sand traps are another thing. The groundskeepers spend a lot of time each year, top dressing the greens, and they use sand to do it with. Why, my way saves them money, so I get a bonus shot out of that. It was a couple years later that I ran into a little trouble with the whole thing, I played with someone who didn’t know the rules.
Not only that, he thought that the less times you hit the ball, the better off you were! What kind of thinking is that??? When I pay good, hard earned money, to play a game, I want as much return for my buck as I can get. Say a person pays $40.00 for a round of golf, if he shoots par, he’s paying a little over a dollar a hit. When I play, it only costs me .35 cents, and I think I have a lot more fun than those people do.
