Just a Game

This afternoon, I watched from our deck as my 8 year old son marched through the backyard lugging over his shoulder a bag of mismatched golf clubs, an oversized glove on the wrong hand and a fist full of bright colored pin flags.  I slumped in my chair so I could watch his event unfold without distracting him.

His next move was to prop his bag up against an old wooden tomato trellis (so the bag would stand up just like mine).  Then he dashed off throughout the yard, placing flags here and there… pacing back and forth, surveying the distances and essentially “creating” golf holes.  For the next hour, he was completely at peace… just playing whatever brand of golf it was that he imagined.  When he was done he asked, “Dad, can we go play golf on one of your courses sometime – a real one?”

I assured him that we would do that – but it was also just as fun to play golf about anywhere we could, if that would be all right with him.  And thankfully it was.  My son is a mirror of me when I was his age… doing anything to replicate the real thing, just so long as it was in fact, a fun “experience”.

The back yard is, after all, where I got my start with golf… with sawed-off clubs, wiffle golf balls and my grandpa’s old Sunday bag.  Early on I did not have access to a golf course – and that was fine, because I imagined my own course right there in my own yard.  Sometimes I would delay my mowing duties by a few days so the grass would get longer than usual – then I could plot out holes and mow fairways, greens and tees.  Much to my father’s chagrin, I would sometimes even lower the deck on the mower to scalp the green areas!  Those “green” areas took longer to heal! Some holes would dogleg around the corner of the house, around trees, or between planting beds.  And if friends came over to play, we might dare to play cross-country (which meant the neighbors lawns would become part of the program as well).  My Mom never approved of that.  Nevertheless, the yard course was a lot of fun.

Eventually, I would get my shot on the real course – just as my son will.  But, for whatever reason, I never felt as though I had missed anything by playing my own game in the yard.  You can get pretty crafty with a 9-iron if you have to – make it do some funky things with a plastic ball.  And some of the shots were downright ridiculous – through gaps in tree branches, under patio umbrellas…. Sometimes the rotating sprinklers became obstacles.  This brand of golf probably influenced my real golf game a little too much – as I never met a shot not worth trying… at least once.

I guess what it was for me then, and hopefully my son now – was the mere enjoyment of the game.  Just getting from point A to point B however we could, and whatever happened in between was just part of the game.  It required terrific imagination to enjoy such a game.  It also required a bit of humility - having to accept when the “impossible shot” found the rain gutter!  Game over!

So, when I saw my son in the yard today, I took it all as a reminder of where I got my start in golf and what really made it fun… and that golf is truly, just a game.