Golf-Babble

By

The Missing Professor

“Run like a thief”

“Be the ball!”

“Nice putt, Alice”

Tired of that cliché a minute, non-stop, mindless jabber you suffer through every round of golf with your buddies? Ready to slam your putter into Vinny’s shin the next time he comes out with the “Never up, never in” thing? Bewildered as to why the hours spent in a relaxed, natural setting yield nothing more elevated than . . . “There’s a little meat left on that bone”?

Is “golf-babble” about to drive you knee-walking nuts? Well, breath easy. Your friendly college professor has the answer.

The next time you and the gang are finishing out on the first hole--seize the moment! Get in touch with your inner Aristotle, and try out this guaranteed, golf-babble muzzler: “Guys . . . tell me. Does golf has philosophical meaning for our lives? I mean, when we’re out here, do we find a greater sense of what is ultimately good?”

Was ever a metaphysical gambit guaranteed to elicit nothing but stunned silence from your companions? Build on it, Plato-man.

As the boys“haul out the lumber” for the second hole to “let the big dog hunt,” you stand in the tee box and stare down the fairway at the distant green with a look of innocent wonderment. “Can you feel it?” you ask. “Our time together . . . this ‘being as one’ with the natural environment. It gives us such a needed escape from our daily lives—the isolation, the regimentation, the worries—not to mention the burden of our technologies. Don’t you think Thoreau would have liked golf?”

Now it’s quite possible at that instant an ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” ringtone will sound on someone’s cell phone, and Fred, retired for ten years now, will hustle over to his golf cart. “I gotta get that, guys,” he’ll call out over his shoulder. This is a good thing. Fred’s urgent retreat helps prove your point.

Meanwhile, you pretend to examine your new driver--that anti-slice, multi-lofted, power-slotted, Bluetooth-enabled, calorie-counting, web-browsing, golfing miracle. With a deep sigh, you comment to no one in particular, “As did the yeoman framer--those rugged individualists of the American frontier--I shall conquer the wilderness before me. Self-reliance and this extraordinary product of American know-how are all I’ll need.” (Don’t worry, it’s doubtful any of your partners will note the irony and ask, “But what would Thoreau think?”)

After duck-hooking your ball out-of-bounds, smacking it into the wall of the townhomes lining the left side of the fairway, your golfing partners will start with the “Quack, quack” thing.  You smile and offer this bit in return, “In an age of suspect ethical behavior and callow pursuit of riches, is it not so that our game still demands honor? Therefore, I gladly accept a two-stroke penalty for my miscue.”

You’ve got your mojo going! It’s par-city, baby. No mulligans. Your playing partners are silenced like the lambs.

But before we go any further, let the old professor give you a teaching tip guaranteed to produce a verbal blackout. It works without fail in all but the most elite college classrooms (and Vinny, Fred, and “Boomer” sure as hell never qualified for one of those). Here’s the time-tested strategy: ask open-ended questions designed to stimulate discussion. Ha! As with nine of ten college students, your buddies will embrace the advice given by that revered scholar, Muhammad Ali. “Silence is golden when you can’t think of an answer.”

So at an opportune moment, maybe when everyone is searching in vain for a banana ball tagged into the tall stuff, try out my teaching tip. Here’s how.

“No matter how you . . . um . . . slice it, guys, the game we play seems to have meaning more deeply buried than Boomer’s drive. Imagine now. We are like the pioneers trekking through the western frontier. What sorts of know-how would we need to survive? How would those skills connect with today’s golf adventure?”

Believe me, your on-course teaching technique will bomb just as it does in 99 percent of college classrooms. Instead of checking Facebook, texting, dosing off, or staring blankly into space like most college students . . . your golf pals will intensify their search for the lost ball, shaking their heads in dismay at your new on-course persona. Whatever path taken, handy golf clichés will pretty much lie stillborn. But, don’t waste a second. Drive home your advantage.

“Think about it,” you urge the guys. “Daniel Boone would have been a hell of a golfer, don’t you agree? Great hand-eye coordination to shoot all those bears and rabbits, no fear about what’s over the next hill, patience when things didn’t work out right . . . stuff like that. And he was at home in the wilderness.”

You now have the upper hand. You’ve thrown a stranglehold over golf-babble, that noxious threat to the game’s enjoyment. Of course, you can’t expect that such verbal habits are easily cast aside. Continued application of the academic ointment will, no doubt, be required. But enjoy the moment. As you line up a birdie putt --ready to close the deal on the eighteen holes, and sure to walk off with all the money--it’s time for a denouement (i.e., the academic’s version of golf-babble). So go with the discussion question gambit again. It’s been a winner.

“Guys. I’ve felt an almost spiritual dimension to our play today. Haven’t you?” At this point, you could probably say not a word more. But what the hell? Forge ahead. “Can we see today’s golf as a reflection of religious practice and spirituality? I’m not talking just about the beginning of life, the fullness of possibility at the first tee, or some end of life on earth reckoning at the 18th -- that ‘final scorecard’ thing. Maybe there’s more?” You place your marker on the green for a tap-in putt. The dazed looks around you signal that a biblical flood of three putts is forthcoming.

“Remember when Boomer drove his ball into the rough? We all said ‘it’s dead; that’s history’. But then Boomer yelled out ‘Jesus Christ!” And low and behold, he found his ball. It was like a rebirth. Right?”

“I get ‘ya,” Boomer says. “It’s like the clubhouse grill is a church, and Jake behind the bar . . .  he’s doing a sacramental wine thing.”

“Wow!” Freddie throws his arms wide, real enthusiasm on his voice. “I like that, Boomster. Beats the heck out of the cranberry juice at my church.”

“Well, God bless us all.” Vinny rolls his eyes and whacks his golf ball off the putting surface in disgust. He’s just missed a two-footer to lose the hole. “Guess I need some New Testament clubs.”

Vinny’s biblical allusion will require some thought by his fellow golfers, but their silence may be only momentary. How long before one of them pipes up with “Only God can hit a one iron”?

But the future still looks bright. Perhaps in Vinny, you’ve found a partner, an acolyte for your ongoing crusade against golf-babble.

“Hey, Vinny.” You pick up the wedge he’s left on the green. “Lemme buy you a beer.”