The Downhill Lie (2 page)

Toad Golf

M
y divorce from golf was uncomplicated and amicable. When I came home from college on visits, my father and I would spend Sunday afternoons watching the PGA on television. Dad had always asserted that Sam Snead was the greatest player of all time, but he was gradually coming around to the possibility that Jack Nicklaus was something special.

Then, in February 1976, my father died suddenly at the outrageously unfair age of fifty, a tragedy that extinguished any lingering whim I might have had to tackle golf again with serious intent. Apparently I played a round later that year with a friend, although my memory of it is fogged.

Possibly I’ve blocked out other rounds, too. My brother, Rob, says that he and I golfed together one time not long after Dad passed away. “It wasn’t good,” he tells me.

The next time I recall swinging a club wasn’t in any conventional, or socially acceptable, format.

It occurred one night that same year, when my best friend and fishing companion, Bob Branham, called to report a disturbing infestation. The culprit was
Bufo marinus,
a large and brazen type of toad that had invaded South Florida from Central America and proliferated rapidly, all but exterminating the more docile native species. The
Bufo
grows to two pounds and eats anything that fits in its maw, including small birds and mice. When threatened, it excretes from two glands behind its eyes a milky toxin extremely dangerous to mammals. Adventuresome human substance abusers have claimed that licking
Bufo
toads produces psychedelic visions, but the practice is often fatal for dogs and cats.

Which is why Bob had called. Every evening a brigade of
Bufo
s had been appearing outside his back door and gobbling all the food he’d put out for Dixie, his young Labrador retriever. It’s probably unnecessary to point out that while Labradors possess a cheery and endearing temperament, they are not Mensa candidates in the kingdom of canines. In fact, Labs will eagerly eat, lick or gnaw objects far more disgusting than a sweaty toad. For that reason, Bob expressed what I felt was a well-founded fear that his beloved pet was in peril during these nightly
Bufo
encounters.

When I arrived at his house, the onslaught was in progress. A herd of medium-sized toads hungrily patrolled the perimeter of his patio, while one exceptionally rotund specimen had vaulted into Dixie’s dish and engulfed so much dog chow that it was unable to climb out. It looked like a mud quiche with eyeballs.

As kids, Bob and I had roamed the Everglades collecting wild critters, so neither of us wanted to harm the
Bufo
s. Yet there seemed no choice but to remove them quickly and by force, before his dopey dog slurped one like a Popsicle.

Ballasted with Alpo, the toads would have been easy to capture by hand. That, however, would have presented two serious problems. One was the poison; the other was pee. Toads are prodigious pissers, and
Bufo
s in particular own hair-trigger bladders. The instant you pick one up, the hosing commences and does not cease until you drop it.

Bob and I were discussing our limited and unsavory options when I noticed a golf bag in a corner near the back door. We had a brief conversation about which of his neighbors was the most obnoxious, and then I reached for a 9-iron. Bob chose a 7.

Before the PETA rally begins, let me point out that an adult
Bufo
toad is one of God’s sturdiest creatures. Bob swears he once saw one get run over by a compact car and then hop away. I have my doubts, but in any case we purposely picked lofted clubs to effect a kinder, gentler relocation.

Aerodynamically, your average toad travels through the air with substantially more drag than a golf ball. This is because golf balls are usually round, and legless. A toad won’t carry as far, or roll more than once or twice when it lands. Nonetheless, I soon found the range with Bob’s 9-iron, chipping several beefy
Bufo
s onto a window awning two houses away. Even at that distance we could hear the feisty invaders clomping across the flimsy aluminum before free-falling into the backyard of their new, unsuspecting hosts.

Purists probably wouldn’t consider clandestine toad launching as true golf, but for accuracy’s sake it must be reported that I took five or six swings with an iron that night. The next time I touched a club was in August 1977, while vacationing in Asheville, North Carolina. The trip stands out for two reasons: Elvis Presley died that week, and I got my first (and last) taste of genuine mountain moonshine. However, I was neither grief-stricken nor bombed when I accompanied a friend to a municipal driving range, which—using borrowed clubs—I chopped into wet clots of flying sod.

During self-imposed retirement I continued to follow the professional tour as a fan, and in 1978 I even attended what was then called the Jackie Gleason Inverrary Classic in Lauderhill. On the afternoon that I was in the gallery, Nicklaus ran off five consecutive birdies on his way to dusting the field. His performance was so otherwordly that it validated my decision to abandon the game; the only way I belonged on a golf course was as a spectator.

Then, in November 2002, another slip occurred, and it ultimately set me on the cart path to perdition.

Monkey Golf

T
he trouble began when Terry McDonell of
Sports Illustrated
asked me to write a humorous piece of fiction for the magazine’s hugely popular swimsuit issue. The “research” would involve traveling to Barbados to observe a photo shoot featuring exotic supermodels in microscopic bikinis.

I told Terry I’d have to think about it, a hesitancy he did not often encounter when offering swimsuit-issue assignments. However, I needed time to compose a description of the project that would sound reasonable to my beautiful Greek wife, deft as she is with cutlery.

For not the first time, imagination failed me—there was no way to put “Barbados” and “supermodels” in the same sentence and sell the trip as anything but a spectacular boondoggle, a Caribbean fantasy camp for aging males.

“Bring Fenia along,” Terry suggested.

“Done.”

The magazine put us up at a well-known and preposterously expensive resort called Sandy Lane, which would later become more famous as the place where Tiger Woods got married.

My editor, Bob Roe, arrived hauling a set of golf clubs. Having journeyed to many tropical locations for previous swimsuit editions, Roe was not breathlessly fascinated with the proceedings. The only golfer in the magazine’s entourage, he’d disappear each afternoon to play one of the rambling eighteen-hole layouts at Sandy Lane.

Meanwhile I was dutifully monitoring the photo sessions on the beach, taking notes and—dare I admit?—getting bored.

You’re thinking: How is that possible?
Sports Illustrated
’s models are the most breathtaking women in the world!

The point cannot be argued. However, fashion shoots can be as sappingly tedious as moviemaking. There were long and frequent delays for weather, lighting, makeup, hair styling, thong alterations and even crowd control. My mission was not to chronicle the scene as a journalist but rather to troll for potentially satiric material. After a couple of days, I’d collected more than enough.

One evening at dinner, Roe and I started chatting about golf. Foolishly I mentioned that I’d played when I was young.

“Why don’t you come out with me tomorrow? It’ll be fun,” he said.

“No, thanks.”

“They’ve got monkeys out there,” he added matter-of-factly.

“What kind of monkeys?”

Roe shrugged. “How should I know?”

I was aware that golf had changed during my three-decade abstinence, but I had no idea that prestigious courses were now being stocked with wild, free-ranging primates. Who in their right mind could pass up a day of monkey golf?

The following afternoon, Roe and I set out for Sandy Lane’s Country Club course, designed by the renowned golf architect Tom Fazio. Roe assured me that the shareholders of Time Warner would be delighted to rent me a set of clubs and pay my green fees. They even kicked in for a golf glove and a sleeve of balls.

Waiting on the first tee, I was no more anxious than a cliff diver in a hurricane. My rented driver bore little resemblance to the old persimmons I’d used as a kid—the clubhead was as large as Ozzy Osbourne’s liver, and made of a distractingly shiny alloy. I have no memory of that first shot, though I feel confident to report that it did not sail 260 yards down the center of the fairway.

Fortunately, Roe is a witty, easygoing guy, and after a few holes my nerves began to settle. For not having played in so long, I was striking the ball shockingly well. I still couldn’t putt worth a damn, but I finished the front nine only 10-over-par, a respectable number considering my extended layoff.

On the back side, those eons without practice caught up. My swing disintegrated and so did my score. I began to notice that whenever I approached my ball, Roe, who stands about six-feet-five, would discreetly endeavor to align himself behind a coconut palm, or cower in a vale of dense shrubbery. At one point, our mild-mannered caddy snatched the 3-wood from my hand and declared that I was no longer allowed to touch it.

Frankly, I wasn’t as dismayed by my rusty play as I was by the lack of marauding primates, and I raised with Roe the issue of false advertising. If a golf course promises monkeys, then, by God, there ought to be monkeys.

The caddy expressed authentic surprise that we hadn’t encountered any of the beasts, which he described as fearless and coarse. The only species found on Barbados is an Old World vervet, the African green monkey, which arrived more than three centuries ago with slave traders from Senegal and Gambia. Today the island’s simian population is estimated at five thousand to seven thousand individuals, a somewhat speculative figure given the logistical challenges of monkey census taking.

African greenies aren’t large—adult males grow only sixteen inches tall, and a ten-pounder would be considered a cruiserweight. But because they sometimes roam in hordes, the possibility for mayhem is omnipresent. I tried to remain upbeat while hacking my way through the last nine.

Finally, as Roe and I stood beneath a tree on the 13th tee, something rustled heavily in the branches above us.

“There’s one!” the caddy cried, with a ring of vindication.

We looked up just in time to see a tawny form darting among the limbs, but just as swiftly it disappeared. In vain we waited for a display of monkey hijinks, but all remained quiet at the top of the tree. The caddy insisted that what we’d seen was an African green, and I politely pretended to believe him. In truth I suspected it was a large squirrel, or even a feral cat.

Roe and I teed off without incident. Heading down the fairway, I watched for movement in the foliage. If a troop of monkeys was tailing us, they were uncharacteristically stealthy and well disciplined.

Roe hit a terrific second shot that landed four feet from the pin. I took my usual ping-pong route to the hole, putted out and stepped away while he lined up a birdie attempt.

As he steadied himself over the ball, I happened to glance back down the fairway—and there, loping boldly toward us with its tail erect, was a robust, full-grown
Chlorocebus aethiops.

Since that day, I’ve apologized numerous times to Roe for what happened next. Indefensibly, inexcusably, I got carried away by the unfolding scene, a genuine Animal Planet moment.

At the precise instant that Roe drew back his putter, I excitedly blurted out: “Look at that fucking monkey!”

Two things happened next, both predictable: The monkey ran away, and Bob missed the putt.

A golfing tradition that hadn’t changed during my absence was the strict code of etiquette. When a player is putting, his companions are expected to remain still and be silent. My untimely outburst might have been forgivable if the monkey had presented a clear and present danger—say, if it was drooling with rabies, or armed with a sharp stick.

It wasn’t. The animal was simply bounding toward the green, probably to beg for a snack.

I felt so badly about Roe missing his birdie that I urged him to try the putt again. He did.

And pulled it to the left, the same as before.

“Do it over,” I implored. “This is all my fault.”

He told me not to worry about it, and tapped in for his par. He remained so good-natured about the fiasco that I was crippled with guilt for several holes. Thank God no other monkeys showed up.

The 18th was a downhill par-3 to the clubhouse. I could see tourists sipping cocktails on the broad veranda and looking out toward the green. A bitter knot gathered in my stomach. It seemed only fitting that I should finish the day as comic relief, considering my
faux paw,
as it were, on the 13th.

Yet, against all odds, I stuck a 6-iron about thirty feet from the hole and two-putted for par.

It was the worst possible thing that could have happened, because I walked off that course believing I could actually play this damn game again.

One day.

Maybe.

If I put some work into it…

The following morning, Roe asked if I wanted to try another round. I almost said yes, but then I remembered how golf goes: One day you’re suckered into self-confidence by making a few decent shots; the next day you can’t hit the green with a sledgehammer, and your spirit is crushed like an insect.

So I politely declined the invitation, and spent the remainder of the trip on the beach with my wife and little boy, watching half-naked supermodels pose for pictures.

Foolishly I brought home a pink Sandy Lane golf tee as a souvenir of the
Sports Illustrated
gig. I should have thrown the stupid thing away, but instead I placed it on a bookshelf in my office, in plain view, a constant reminder of that sunny day in Barbados.

What the hell was I thinking?

Total Relapse

G
olf books are laced with aphorisms and pithy one-line nuggets of advice because golfers aren’t supposed to overload their brains. “Swing thoughts” should be few and simple, according to the experts. One’s mind should be uncluttered, and at ease.

Unfortunately, the single most important fact about golf is as calming as a digital prostate exam: It’s hard.

Ridiculously hard, if your goal is to play well.

When I decided to reconnect with the game, I had no illusions about getting really good at it. I just wanted to be better at
something
in middle age than I was when I was young.

The golf industry estimates that between two million and three million newcomers take up the sport every year, but there is no reliable statistic on recidivists like me.

For many of those golf-free years I’d lived down in the Florida Keys, where I pursued a passion for fly-fishing. My preferred quarry was bonefish, a swift and skittish species that must be stalked while wading, or poling a flat-bottom skiff across the shallows. Bonefish are often difficult to find, and even more difficult to fool with a pinch of rooster feathers tied on a bare hook. They are among the fastest fish in the sea but, being neither tasty nor impressively large, their appeal is limited to anglers of an intense and arcane bent.

In the summer of 2005, our family moved up the coast to Vero Beach, where there are no bonefish to be caught. Consequently I found myself lacking an unhealthy obsession, a perilous state for a writer.

As it happened, the contractor building our new house was Joe Simmens, the older brother of Big Al, my high school classmate and former golfing companion. Joe had a summer membership at one of the local clubs, and he asked if I wanted to join him for nine holes one afternoon.

No thanks, I said.

Joe kept after me, and to this day I truly believe that he meant no harm; he was just trying to be friendly.

Eventually, I caved. We played a quick nine and it wasn’t a total disaster; in fact, it was pleasant. I had a few good holes, which is all that any dumbass needs to fool himself into thinking he’s got talent.

Days later, Joe and I played again. There were fewer bright moments, and less cause for hope, but I managed to convince myself that I was struggling because I was using borrowed clubs.

So I took the next step: I went shopping for my own sticks.

What triggered such an impulsive and chancy decision is hard to say. Time, lurking like a starved jackal, was surely a factor. If I ever were to try golf again, the battle had to be joined while I was still ambulating with pin-free joints and uncompressed vertebrae.

It would be the beginning, I knew, of a weird and self-pulverizing journey. Like a true masochist, I kept notes.

Day 1

My teenaged stepson, Ryan, agrees to accompany me to a store that specializes in secondhand golf equipment. Everywhere I look are gleaming clusters of pre-owned, metal-head drivers. After a few minutes of puzzled meandering, I confess to Ryan that I have no idea what kind of clubs to buy.

Finally, while browsing through the bags, I spot a familiar and hallowed name: Nicklaus.

I snatch up the set and approach the register, where an amused-looking salesman assures me that the clubs will fit just fine. The previous owner, he says, was exactly my height and build. I hand over my credit card.

Ryan asks, “What about a glove?”

“Oh yeah. I’ll take a glove, too.”

“And don’t forget some balls,” Ryan says.

“Right. Good idea.”

The total bill: $164.21. Some guys spend more than that on a putter.

My plan, though, is to start cheap. Minimizing the investment in golf gear should make it easier not to take the game so seriously and, if necessary, allow for an honorable retreat. Dropping fifteen hundred bucks on a new set of clubs would have been a heavy, long-term commitment—who needs that kind of pressure?

Pleased with my strategy, I walk out of the store toting an almost pristine set of Golden Bear TranZitions with a “light reflex” .370 tip, reinforced with titanium. I have no clue what any of that means, but I’m about to find out.