On The Tee: Peters Single (May 16, 2010)

I am a golfer.   

I'm not very good, but I'm not very bad either, which I suppose is saying something. I am an average golfer, equally capable of crisp irons and skulled wedges. As such, I feel comfortable playing with all types of other golfers, knowing that I likely won't slow down better players, nor will I lose my patience with all but the worst hackers and duffers. 

Often, I play alongside people I know in a pre-ordained foursome comprised of friends and family.  But just as often, II head to courses across this nation alone, a "single" in golf parlance, and have my playing partners chosen by fate, timing, and the whims of a golf shop starter who looks down his ledger and looks for open slots to fill.

I've spent dozens of days on the course observing wonderful people with wretched swings, watching them post scores that resemble the weigh-in for a junior welterweight fighter. I've played alongside miserable sons-of-bitches who play the game like self-loathing poets, creating beauty out of shaped shots and elegant backspin, only to tear apart their masterpiece if you dare flatter them.

Most of all, what I've learned is that when you play golf as a single, you tend to remember the characters you played with long after the actual score you shot has disappeared into a scorecard-choked pocket in your golf bag. For years, I've toyed with the idea of profiling my rounds as an unplanned playing partner, painting portraits of the strangers I meet for a span of four or five hours at a time. 

After addressing the ball for far too long, this is my first swing at it.

Sunday, May 16th, 2010 - Pinecrest Golf Club, Holliston, MA

After tearing my right hamstring in an attempt to travel through time (I figured I could convince myself I was still in my 20's by running really fast to beat out an infield single in softball), I decided to test out the injured leg and my rusty swing at Pinecrest, an executive-length, par-66 track that's right down the street from my house. 

I don't play Pincerest all that often, despite its proximity. While the course has many quirks that make it trickier than many short, municipal tracks I've come across, it is also not a place that will ever be mistaken for Augusta National. Forget the dress code of collared shirts and bermuda shorts. Your Pinecrest playing partner is as likely to be wearing Wolverine work boots as he is to be sporting FootJoys.  

Of course, those boots can come in handy, as Pinecrest is famous for Evergladian fairways in the wake of even moderate rainfall. But on Sunday, after almost a week of fair weather, the course was dry, the parking lot was nearly full, and I was looking for a place where I could walk in as a single and play a sub-four-hour round.

Although I didn't know it yet, I first met my soon-to-be playing partners in the pro shop, standing behind the duo in line. The first was a broad-chested, barrel-gutted guy in his 30's wearing a pale blue golf shirt that looked like it may have started as navy blue a few summers back. The guy moved like a former high school linebacker, turning his head to look around and then letting his shoulders follow, like a Metrowest Terminator sent from the future to kill domestic lagers. 

 With him was a duck of an odder waddle (I know, not an expression, but hey, someone has to start them.) The man was in his late 40's or early 50's, dressed in sneakers, dark blue sweat pants, and a yellow t-shirt. If his clothes were unconventional, the man certainly followed suit from the neck up. He wore the expression and the hair of a Caucasian Erik Estrada, circa... 2010. Though he was certainly not as good looking as Ponch, his cocksure grin made it clear you'd have no chance convincing him of that fact. And then there were the glasses. He wore cheap, ill-fitting shades with golden rims that would've looked more appropriate on Paris Hilton.

After chatting up the guy behind the counter, the tandem left for the first tee, and once I paid, I was informed that I'd be playing with them if I caught up . Needless to say, the prospect of walking the course with two such characters was too intoxicating to pass up, so I hustled to the course, only to find them repeating the conversation they'd just had in the pro shop, this time with the starter.

"I'm Brian" offered the younger man, "And this is Steve." I introduced myself and quickly began loading my pockets with tees and balls. I'd barely gotten started when Steve began telling me everything I needed to know about him. 

"I play for fun. I'm not a great golfer, but I try and get better every time. And my clubs, well they aren't exactly state-of-the-art."" Except he never said "art." Steve's approximately five decades of Massachusetts citizenship making the pronunciation of the "r" sound impossible. Still, he held up his dilapidated golf bag to reveal a half-dozen mismatched sticks, several of which had actual wood heads. I didn't see a driver though, or any wedges. In fact, I didn't really see a putter, but assumed I was simply being unobservant.

Brian, having heard Steve's rap many times before, teed up his ball and took a heavy-armed swingthat resulted in a second shot from under some trees on the right. "This is my first time out this year."

Alibi noted.

Steve's swing matched just about everything else about him as he jerked his rusty club back no higher than his shoulder, without an inch of noticeable wrist hinge. The ball protested on a low, slicing line for about 175 yards, barely reaching the beginning of the fairway. However, regardless of result, he posed in his abbreviated follow-through like he'd just struck a shot that would make Bobby Jones weep.

As a single, I always let everyone else tee off first, and my tee shot traveled about 225 yards with too much cut, bounding under the branches of a tree to the right, leaving me with only a punch out.And we were off. 

It's on that first stroll down the fairway that you really get a sense of what you're in for as a single, and Steve was even chattier as we moved forward, turning the conversation to Tiger Woods, a topic that perfectly blends the two things men want to talk about on the course: golf and sex with women who we will never have sex with.

Steve focused on the number of women Tiger had bedded, an air of admiration in his commentary, while Brian seemed to enjoy talking about some work he was doing that would take him away from his family overnight and joking about his potential to "play like a Tiger" on the road. Steve, who made it clear he knows Brian's wife, seemed all in favor.

When we reached the first green, none of us with a par putt to speak of, Steve pulled out his five iron. "I don't carry a putter... I use this. I actually threw the last putter I owned out because if I kept it in my garage or somesuch, I might've gotten tempted to pull it out and use it again." Now I've often said that putters are the one piece of equipment in golf where comfort and confidence trump technology... but I've always assumed that a putter was somewhere in the equation. Not for Steve.

By the third hole, two things were clear. First, Steve really could putt with his five iron, having rolled the ball no better or worse on any of the greens than any of us using traditional flatsticks. Second, Brian really was looking forward to some time away from the wife, as he spent half the hole on his cell phone with the Mrs. Brian, arguing about the fact he took the car to the course that morning, and then the rest of the hole trying to recover from the ball he lost into the water behind the green. Funny how a shouting match with the little missus puts a few extra yards on your wedge shots. The hole was punctuated by Steve sinking a 20-foot downhill putt... with his 5 iron, after having pitched out of a greenside bunker... with his 5 iron. 

So here I was, playing a round with two gentlemen who truly had nowhere else they wanted to be. An eternal bachelor with an unhealthy attachment to his five-iron and a family man with a wife who was waiting for him to come home so she could continue their argument. Needless to say, both spent plenty of time looking for lost balls and scouring the high grass for Titelists and Top Flites that had been left for dead. Brian also felt free to take more mulligans than the Dublin phonebook until he started playing better, but as far as I could tell, he wasn't keeping a scorecard.

On the ninth hole, Brian hit his first big drive of the day and that's when his real personality emerged. I too hit one a long ways down the fairway and as we walked forward, it became clear he'd got about five more yards on his drive than I had on mine. "I'm pretty sure I outdrove ya'." I smiled and laughed. After having watched him shank, scuff and top plenty of shots, I assumed he was kidding around. He wasn't.

"I get kinda competitive, ya' know?"

Of course, Brian's "competitive side" turtled on the subsequent four or five shots as he came up short on his approach and chipped over the green two different times before three-putting. But the pattern would hold, as for the rest of the round, any time we both hit driver and he didn't lose a ball, Brian would make a comment if he outdrove me.

I parred the ninth, finally getting off the bogey train, and finished the front nine at 10-over par, with two double-bogeys, one par, and the rest bogeys. A strangely unsatisfying front where I never played well, nor did I ever play truly poorly. 

By the back nine, it was almost lunch time and Steve's thoughts turned to subs. Over the course of the next three holes, he extolled the virtues of putting "hots" on roast beef, as if this idea was new and visionary. He went as far as to elevate the practice of slathering hot peppers on a roast beef sub to a theraputic level, claiming he'd once fought off a bad cold in the middle of a work day by eating one such sandwich. Lord knows the makers of Sudafed do NOT want this story to get out.

Brian's brand of golf continued. on the 11th hole, he scuffed his drive only 100 yards, proceeded to reload, and bomb a drive that landed on and held the green on the 255-yard par 4 hole. No need to ask which ball he played out.

If Brian's willingness to throw down a second ball made him seem casual, it was nothing compared to what he threw out on the 14th tee. When asked by Steve how things had been going at home, Brian confessed that he knew he and his wife would divorce sometime soon. He recounted the past two times he'd left her, only to return and see short-lived results form couples counseling. Apparently the latest round of therapy had just worn off. There wasn't an ounce of distress or anxiety in Brian's voice as he laid these facts out. He seemed far more concerned with the thick grass his drive had landed in on the short, uphill par 4. 

Steve was equally nonplussed, clearly having heard these stories before. He used the occasion to point out the wisdom in his choice of eternal bachelorhood. He me mused upon the fact that his former long-time girlfriend had just gotten married to someone else. "I told her on our first date that I was never getting married. Guess she didn't believe me and felt like I wasted 14 years of her life, but I told her that very first night."

On the 16th hole, the worm turned and apparently it was my turn to provide the entertainment. On the long, dogleg-right par 4, I had hit a good drive, with my second shot rolling over the back of the green. A mediocre chip resulted in a long par putt that I lagged to two feet. I walked up to tap in for my (sixth consecutive) bogey and as I bent down to get my ball out of the hole, I heard the unmistakable sound of a five iron being used as a putter. From 40 feet away, Steve's ball rolled toward the hole, on a perfect line to the cup. I stood there, my eyes only a few feet from the hole, watching the putt track as it slowed toward the hole. And then, less than an inch from the lip of the cup, it stopped and settled into a small divot on the edge of the cup. 

Brian and I shouted our disbelief. Steve groaned. I consoled Steve, "You got robbed. If that little mark on the green wasn't there, it would've gone in!" He nodded and wondered rhetorically about who had left the divot and what they had against him. I told him, "I swear, I was standing inches from that putt, and all I could think was, 'Holy crap... this is really gonna happen!'"

Steve and Brian exploded with laughter. They thought that was just about the funniest thing they'd ever heard on a golf course. "Holy crap... this is really gonna happen." They repeated the line about a half-dozen times over the final three holes. It was their comedy touchstone when Brian hit two of his final three tee shots out of bounds. It was a line that was echoed when Steve almost rolled in another putt on 17. And as we shook hands after the 18th hole, I imagined it was a catch-phrase Steve and Brian would throw around over their next poker game.

I finished the back nine with nine consecutive bogeys and looked back on the round as one utterly devoid of genuinely great or truly awful shots on my part (the golf equivalent of eating at Chili's). But Steve said I played real well, and since he hadn't been wrong about anything else all day, I guess I'll have to believe him.