Morning
Eli 18.0 was going to Cedar Point (the roller coaster park) on Sunday with his friends. He was leaving at 6 a.m.I figured I wouldn't go back to sleep after he left (father worries, even though he's an excellent driver). I decided to just make an early tee time at our little local course, have breakfast, and be at the course by about 6:45. I never go that early (because there's no reason to), but once I got there, I was greeted with this:
So peaceful, and so beautiful. And this was the view from the first tee.
I have complicated feelings about golf, and I didn't understand that until recently. I thought I was just playing because Eli had suddenly gotten into it.
That's only partially true.
When I started playing as a kid, I think I was about ten, and I loved it immediately. By the time I was twelve, I was riding to work with my neighbor two doors down, because his concrete plant was only five minutes away from a golf course, and he'd drop me off about 7:40.
Back then, I paid $3.75 and played as much as I wanted. I'd play a morning round, have a cheeseburger (.75) out of the vending machine, and then play again in the early afternoon.
See, back then, I was the Enthusiasm Engine, too, just like Eli.
By the afternoon, it was in the nineties with high humidity, but I was twelve and I didn't care. I would play a second round by myself in a little over two hours.
Johnny would come pick me up about 4:00, and I'd go home.
It was so much fun, and golf was my thing, because it rewarded both athleticism and thinking.
Stuff happens, though. The course was too far away, and I couldn't go all the time with my neighbor, and there was no range near our house during the school year. Lessons were expensive, and I needed them, and even if I had gotten them, the local pro really wasn't very good.
Eventually, it just all dried up.
I was okay with that, but I realized at some point this summer that I genuinely missed the feelings I had on a golf course, that kind of splendid isolation that can happen. It's a kind of active meditation.
I also realized I felt like I had unfinished business in terms of getting good, because I was very skilled for my age once, but it felt like a video game I put down before I finished.
Now, I'm getting it back, and I have this weird overlap feeling sometimes when I hit a nice shot and the moment overlaps with my kid self.
It feels good.
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