"Golfing talent is almost certainly not God-given," I may have opined in a previous article, but dragging my un-showered keister to the local muni course yesterday at 7:35 AM as a single player, flailing away at 30 range balls in a hurried warm-up so awful I nearly drove home, reluctantly forking over two hard-earned Jacksons and a sawbuck for green fees, and then being ordered to tee-off ahead of three impatiently waiting foursomes by an alert and keen-witted starter, including a lead quartet of surprised and indignant Koreans, who hadn’t purchased golf carts and were obviously planning to spearhead a morning-stroll glacier of golf mediocrity… now THAT’S God working in my life.

Yesterday’s golf miracles didn’t stop there, however.  The eager drum major of the four-man Asian parade had already pegged his dimpled orb into the turf, and was rehearsing his hai-karate swing as I cautiously stepped into view on the first tee box, my face smeared with white sunscreen beneath a mop of “just woke up” hair stuffed under a tan visor, my wrinkled khaki pants topping Nike golf sneakers with adolescent red stripes, and a “don’t blame me - the starter said I could” expression in my eyes.  Bending over stiffly to extract his ball and tee, the man retreated to join his comrades on the sidelines, content for the moment to form a cynical, impromptu gallery along with the other irritated, scowling customers.

It had been two months since I’d played a round of golf, and having practiced so poorly a mere half-hour earlier, I suddenly felt a severe case of first-tee jitters creeping up my spine, as I glanced down the fairway and realized there was not a soul playing the hole in front of us.  The entire front side, in fact, was completely abandoned -- nine empty, pristinely mowed fairways, framed beautifully by brown overseeded border grass -- and everyone watching knew I had been granted a more-than-significant privilege:  I could play at whatever pace I chose, and not a single minute would be wasted waiting for a green to clear, or a wayward ball to be located.  My good fortune stunned me, because the sun had been up for at least two hours, and established municipal golf courses like this one usually swarmed with retired duffers and dottering old men wearing Hogan caps.

Puzzled, yet secretly chuffed to the gutties, I unsheathed my driver and rummaged around in my bag for a good ball sans scratches, the quiet clicking of wooden tees and stray cleats sounding conspicuous in the deafening silence that began to surround me.  The agitated gallery was being unusually polite, I thought to myself… or more likely, unusually cruel.  Showing up to play as a single at strange golf courses was a “macho” rite-of-passage I had purposely subjected myself to for many years, but it had been a long while since the last outing, and my recent swing changes now seemed as firm as a freshly poured jello mold.   

“Only a no-talent LOSER would hit a shank-slice at a time like this,” a demon’s voice whispered into my ear, as I took a few practice cuts.  I searched frantically through a mental maelstrom of swing thoughts for something familiar to grasp onto, like a drowning man thrashing around for his life preserver.  My recent key – a supinated left arm, seemed only half-awake, but I steadied myself and swung aggressively nevertheless, focusing intently on the image of the ball with the flub-demon screaming “Ooops!” at the top of his hellish lungs.  Amazingly, I felt solid contact in my right forefinger even though it was the very last thing I expected.  Performance pressure in the sport of golf can be excruciating, even for top professionals.

“Good shot,” I heard the Korean gang-leader say behind me, as I squinted upward at the ball’s flight.  His kind comment was, in reality, grudging praise, because it soon dawned on me that I had crushed this ball:  a low, penetrating draw that started up the right side of the fairway and bounded toward the middle like a galloping horse.

“Thank-you,” I muttered in barely-disguised astonishment, as I shouldered my bag with the faux weariness of a tour journeyman, and then departed from the swelling gallery to begin an 18-hole voyage alone, my pounding heart so light in my chest that my feet scarcely touched the ground.  A solitary, playground fantasy of childhood golfing daydreams soon enveloped me, complete with glistening ponds, jealous mockingbirds, and mature eucalyptus trees.  A triumphant, 300-yard saunter down the 1st fairway of paradise, to a shining golf ball filled with the promise of great things to come.

* * * *

My golf fantasy didn’t end with one tee shot, thankfully.  Having no sand wedges in my bag (I’ve lost them one by one), a pitching wedge served as my entire short game arsenal, and a three-quarter swing produced a lovely example that found the green, and I two-putted for an easy par 4.  The second hole was no different:  a power-draw off the tee into the fairway, a half-swing nine-iron onto the putting surface, and another two putt par, with the second putt being a usually treacherous (for me) six-footer.  Something wonderful had finally clicked in my practice swings on the 2nd fairway, my left arm woke from its temporary slumber, and I began truly warming to the pleasurable task in front of me.  I had also widened the gap on the pursuing Korean mob to a full-hole distance, and I began to revel in playing quickly and rhythmically on this beautiful, tree-lined test of golf measuring 7000 yards from the tips.  My titanium driver literally slayed this handsome beast (the former site of PGA tour events from 1979 to 1990) like a two-handed vorpal sword, and the length of my drives was such that only a single 7-iron approach was required on number 18, with the remainder being 8-irons or less.

I did return to Earth briefly when, much to my dismay, I missed saving par on two holes on the front side, a Par-4 and a tricky Par-3;  when I came to the Par-5 9th, my score stood frozen at 2-over = 33 strokes.  I had been in this same statistical dilemma numerous times in previous efforts to shoot low numbers, but this time things were definitely different:  my swing seemed much more fundamentally sound, and I was hitting fairways and greens with a power and grace I had never experienced before.  I was striking everything very solidly, and I wasn’t making any really “bad” swings.  During yesterday’s round, it wasn’t a matter of merely “surviving” the 18-hole ordeal, and praying I wouldn’t ultimately “screw-up.”  Instead, I was surging with confidence, hitting approach shots from good positions in the fairways, and looking forward to the challenges of each new hole, particularly from the tees.  For the first time in my life, the “big dog” had become my favorite club in the bag, and I was more than happy to feed it 300-yard red meat – with a slight draw -- on multiple occasions.  There is perhaps no more satisfying feeling in golf, than watching a well-struck drive curve subtly into the center of the fairway from right to left, when that is precisely what you intended for it to do.

Many times in my golfing “career” however, a score of 2-over par had, upon arriving at the 9th hole, decayed rapidly into 4-over par, and soon into 8-over par by the end of the round.  I stared grimly down the fairway of the midway point Par 5, and observed the beer-cart girl headed slowly in my direction.  Even though the concept proved to be miserably flawed, I had, back in 1994, planned on mastering golf for the express purpose of impressing the fair sex with my “stick” proficiency.  (If any women other than lesbians were truly serious about playing golf, my ill-fated idea may have borne fruit, no pun intended.)  Unleashing the “big-dog” once again upon spying her, I reared back and struck a tremendous tee-shot which virtually split the fairway, the ball bounding past her cart like a joyful greyhound.  Pretending to ignore her until she virtually ran me over, I feigned embarrassment and purchased a coca-cola, inquiring innocently if she had seen where my ball had gone, knowing full well it was perched safely in the short grass about fifty yards ahead.

“No, I didn’t see it,” she replied.  Suppressing a mournful sigh, I tipped the young co-ed two dollars and moved inexorably onward with my quest, the role of Steve’s golf princess -- still quite vacant.

Princess-less or not, I decided to go for the ninth green in two, from a distance of approximately 220 yards.  I swung extra viciously at it, and whether the increased energy was due to the effect of carbonated caffeine or snubbed male hormones -- I can’t be totally certain.  Whatever the cause, I simply flushed the finest three-iron of my entire existence on this peculiar planet.  The ball took off like a guided missile, holding its line against a breezy headwind, and never once leaving the flag.  The elevated green hid the final outcome from my aging eyes, but less than two minutes later, upon witnessing the spectacular result, I forgot all about my long-lost golf-cart romance.  The Titleist Pro V1 had landed on the carpet flag-high, taking a 15-inch hop forward from its mark, and had come to rest less than five feet from the pin.  A simple uphill, right-to-left breaking putt was all that stood between me and an eagle which would catapult me back to level par 36 for nine holes of championship golf.

I drained that putt, stabbing it directly in its empty heart, and my Tiger Woods fist pump was cheered thunderously… by absolutely no one.

* * * *

The best 18-hole round of my life continued in a similar theme on the back nine, but two more missed par-saves added up to a nevertheless groundbreaking round of 2-over-par 74.  As I stowed my faithful sticks away, cleaned-up my grass-gnarled spikes, and shut the trunk lid with a wry smile, I somehow knew my long-awaited dream of breaking par in golf had “Summer of 2007” written all over it.

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