Fore!

My B-section story in The Post today got me some compliments, so I'm putting it up here for two reasons: Somebody besides me found my jokes funny, and unless I do, nobody will see it in two weeks without paying for it.

My life as a duffer ... ... or how to be a really bad golfer
By Robert LaHue - Staff Writer

Author Mark Twain described golf as "a good walk spoiled."

Winston Churchill went further, calling the sport "a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an even smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-suited for the purpose."

Since its creation in Scotland six centuries ago, golf has been frustrating players. The only differences are that the sport's now worldwide, the materials used to make the clubs and balls have changed, and there's fewer golfers wearing kilts.

Sure, there are many skilled, talented golfers out there (see Woods, Tiger; Mickelson, Phil; etc.), but most golfers are not the type who hit mesmerizing shots that bring awe and respect from others on the course. Most golfers hit mortifying shots that bring guffaws and laughter from others on the course.

This poor golfing can be blamed on a number of things. Perhaps golf courses are strategically placed on strange gravitational vortexes, like the one near Gold Hill, Ore., that cause the ball to travel at trajectories that aren't what you intended when swinging. Maybe the metals mixed into a golf ball's core have a golf course-triggered magnetism to silicon, pulling an otherwise well-hit ball into a sand trap.

However, it's probably not those things. You're probably just a bad golfer.

While being a bad golfer is a skill that is naturally acquired, and can be maintained with constant practice, it takes true skill to be a golfer so horrible as to make the squirrels run in terror at the sight of you walking to the tee box. That is a skill all in itself.

After a Friday morning round at the newly reopened Tuscan Ridge Club on the Skyway, this reporter, who has terrorized golf- course earthworms from Chico to Cave Junction, Ore. and placed fear in water hazards from the Ridge to Battle Mountain, Nevada, once again reaffirmed his ability to stink up a course.

So follow these tips on how to play badly, and if the rules of golf ever change to where the highest score wins, you'll be set.

Don't Warm Up: Good golfers ease their way into a round, usually hitting a small bucket of balls on the driving range before making their way onto the course. This gets the body used to the motion and flow of a good golf swing. True bad golfers should do some stretching to avoid injury, but head straight out for the course. The first three holes are just "practice," anyway.

But should you still feel the need to warm up, there are many bad golfer drills that can done. These included slamming your club against the ground in frustration, swearing quietly under your breath, yelling blood-curdling screams of agony, and wrapping your putter around a tree.

Practice Holes: This is an expansion on the practice philosophy explained above. In theory, unless playing professionally, any golf hole is "practice." But for the bad golfer, it is important to openly proclaim a hole as "practice" to give justification for writing your score down for the hole as five when that was more like the square root of your actual score.

"Practice" is also the justification for playing winter rules in mid-July or abandoning marking the scorecards altogether around the sixth hole when your score is already too high to be added up with a standard calculator.

Grip It and Rip It: How golfers grasp the club varies. Some interlock two fingers (the Vardon grip), some overlap the hands but don't interlock the fingers (the overlapping grip), and some let all 10 fingers touch the club (the 10-finger grip). Bad golfers can pick and choose between these or even alternate between them, since none of them are going to work. Bad golfers may also want to try a fourth grip - praying.

The Law of Averages: Jacques Bernoulli, the Swiss mathematician that came up with this law in the 1700s, probably wasn't thinking of golf when writing it out. But it applies.
The law states the more an activity is done (such as flipping a coin, rolling dice or missing six-inch putts), the more likely it is that the theoretical average will prove to be true.

For a bad golfer, this means that even though you might manage to hit a good long, straight drive over the ravine off the seventh tee at Tuscan Ridge, you will most likely screw up any opportunity for par or better by sending your approach shot into the rough, missing the green on a chip and then three-putting.

Don't Use The Ball Washer: These devices, found at most tee boxes, allow golfers to scrub any dirt residue off the ball, allowing the ball to stay on a truer flight path, along with making the ball look good with a bright white gleam. Don't bother. There's no point in cleaning something that you're likely going to lose within your next six swings.

Laugh A Little: The official credo of the Bad Golfers Association (yes, there is such an actual organization) includes the statement "a day of bad golf is better than some days at the office." Instead of feeling frustrated with your inability to keep your round score out of triple digits (maybe even for nine holes), take your score with a smile.

Golf courses are often built with scenery in mind. The Tuscan Ridge Club is no exception to this. The red landscaped rock, the harsh, dry rough and deep emerald green of the fairways and greens is a cavalcade of color for the golfer to observe and take in. Lizards, dragonflies, and birds move about, creating a real sense of being one with nature. The ninth hole features a pond with a working waterfall. This not only provides fantastic visual imagery, but the noise of moving water is the perfect excuse for why you choked on a chip shot.

Make sure your shoes are comfortable to walk in, since you'll be traversing the course in every direction but straight.

By stopping to look at the scenery around them, a golfer like me can make this little trip around the course a pleasant journey, even if the first three shots off the first tee all hooked badly out of bounds over a ditch, fence and a few acres of grass.

In other words, don't let the bad golf spoil the good walk.

...Golf is like beer. You love it and despise it simultaneously!