It starts with the balls. While dozens of games utilize balls, in golf we tend to take them most personally. This has to do with the intrinsic appeal of the ancient game -- the ball as extension of our own selves. When well struck, those dimpled little spheroids allow us to cover vast expanses of geography, to leap wooded ravines and frothing bays in a heartbeat -- essentially to be in two places at once. That is not, for those of you who missed catechism lessons, the same as omnipresesent. But it does approach the divine.
That helps explain our fascination with long knockers.
The object of the game -- whether you arrive on the putting green, the "short hairs," with one big bang or several little bumps -- is to put the ball "in the hole." In basketball, soccer and lacrosse, the goal is to put the ball in a large, netted object. In golf, your aim is a dark little hole -- sunk in the essence of Earth Mother.
On the preponderance of occasions, you accomplish this with your putter. And, upon waking on any golfing day, your first conscious sensation is usually a desire to score early and well.
But frankly, until recently I'd never really considered the subject of golf as sexual metaphor much beyond the wise advice given by a kindly stranger at Royal Dornoch in the highlands of Scotland. I'd just pounded a drive about 300 yards down the middle, but it hit something and bounced dead right into a thicket of gorse. I cussed and he said: "Ah, lad, golf is like sex. As long as it feels good, don't feel bad."
No less an authority than Lee Trevino, who is fathering children in his 50s, has accused putts he's left woefully short of having "a family problem -- short and not hard enough."
Then not long ago I played in a charity tournament with a female member of the Honolulu City Council. She was noticably with child, which impeded her full swing, but she had a terrific short game. And so, as she approached an uphill 30-yard pitch shot, I said in an encouraging tone: "Knock it up." Oops. It had already been done.
Fear of saying the wrong thing is one of the reasons that until recently I eschewed playing golf with women. In the `90s, not many of them appreciate hearing a guy muttering over a putt left short: "Nice putt, Mary Alice." Or: "Does your husband play golf, too?"
Then there's the swearing, which some of us use to vent frustration in a hurry, without paying much attention to exactly what epithets we're spewing, and get on to the next shot. Most of the ladies I've been paired with over the years never uttered anything more vulgar than "Oh, sugar!" after a missed putt.
And after a particularly ugly hole, it would be hard to console such a sweetie with my favorite golf joke: What's the difference between golf and an orgy? In golf, one bad hole won't kill you.
The other thing is that I have rather resented playing a par-3 of 175 yards across water -- the third hole at Mauna Kea, for instance -- while the ladies get to drive up and hit from 75 over mowed grass.
My prejudice was such that when my ex-wife, not long before she attained that status, asked me to teach her golf, I bought her a tennis racquet.
Not that golf courses aren't romantic places. Trying to squeeze in nine before dark at Pebble Beach, I once came upon a couple engaged in arduous amorousness on the ocean cliff beside the seventh green. A lovely sight at sunset. On another occasion, playing the seaside 15th at Mauna Lani's South Course, we wondered about a golf cart with two sets of clubs parked behind the green. As we putted out, a couple climbed back up from the beach, zipping up shorts, re-tucking shirts and after-glowing.
But combining women and golf, I knew, could be dangerous. Just ask the young assistant pro at Oahu Country Club, who was giving lessons to the newly divorced daughter of a retired general. Hurrying back to the clubhouse after dallying into the dark on the practice tee, the pro hit something, bounced the young woman out of the cart and ran over her leg, breaking it. An ambulance was called and he was unemployed. Gone with the fibula.
The lesson of all this: Golf is an escape, best reserved for the good cheer of guys.
But then I met an enchanting young woman, a former beauty queen who once ran for Miss Hawaii. As it turns out, she was just learning to play golf with friends from work. Our first date was a round of golf. She was eager to learn and gladly welcomed pointers. Actually, she had two great pointers, but welcomed tips, er, suggestions. Anyway, she showed real potential and I was happy to share the wisdom of 30 years of hacking around and reading everything that Hogan and Nicklaus ever said about the game.
"Nice move through the ball, you really got your hips into that one," I said after she banged a nice drive.
"I did," she said with arched brows, "didn't I?"
On a day when the course was muddy after a night of rain, she said: "Can I wash your balls?" It was the first time I'd ever swooned on a golf course.
Later, she pull-hooked a tee shot and I said "You hooked it."
"Excuse me?"
"Uh, you came over the top."
"But I like it on top."
That day, for the first time, we played after golf. What a great new concept: Golf as foreplay!
As summer turned to autumn, we played golf at least once a week and my game began to improve, despite the distraction of finding new meaning in hearing her say such well-worn expressions as:
"You really banged that one."
"I muffed it."
"How far down the shaft should I grip it?"
"Long and strong!"
"Oh, that felt good! I hit it right on the button."
"Ram it home!"
"Oh dear, a dribbler."
"Don't you hate it when it just lays on the lip like that and won't go in! Where's the Astroglide when you need it?"
"Nice poke."
And my favorite: "Yes! Yes! Yes!"
Once, watching a solid 5-iron shot sail over the flag when a choked-down 6 would have sufficed, I implored: "Bite! Bite!"
"That's the first time I've heard you say that," she said. "But if you insist..."
She smiled knowingly when she hit a blind 5-wood to within two feet and I said: "You stiffed it." She said: "Again."
And when she curled a sidehill putt into the back of the hole and I said something about "slipping it in the back door," she looked up with wide, curious eyes and said: "Now that's a thought."
I started to believe that maybe this was the real thing when I three-putted three greens in a row and she touched my arm, looked into my eyes and said: "Would it help if I kissed your putter for good luck?"
As a matter of fact, it did help. This was a selfless act, considering that we had a wager on the outcome of the match. Not that there was ever a loser. Our bets were, shall we say, mutually agreeable to both parties.
Along the way, I began to appreciate golf in a new way. I enjoyed the scenery, the singing of birds, the warmth of the sun, the color and aroma of flowers, the scent of her perfume wafting up from a bunker. And I felt a satisfaction as she learned the game, hit more good shots and got as hooked on golf as I was on her. And a strange thing happened: With this new attitude, I was playing the best golf of my life, regularly shooting in the 70s.
I thought it might last forever. But life, like golf balls, takes some weird bounces. As autumn turned to winter, she was transferred by her company. "It's a great opportunity," she said. I said I understood. She left town. I worked on my game alone.
And then one winter day at the driving range, I happened to run into a female acquaintance I hadn't seen in months. Her looping swing was awkward and included a semi-pirouette at the top.
"I didn't know you played golf."
"Oh, hi. This is just my second time," she said. "I need help."
"I see. For starters, you're gripping the club like a baseball bat."
She looked up and said: "How should I hold it."
I love it when a woman talks like that.
We hit balls together for a while. She got rid of the pirouette and actually got a few balls airborn.
"You're a great teacher!" she said. "Maybe you could help me again?"
We're getting together at the driving range next week. In the meantime, I suggested that she swing a club in front of a mirror.
"A mirror?," she said, semi-blushing. "I'd never thought about using one for golf before... But, sure, it always helps when you can see yourself."
You could see a light suddenly flashing on inside her brain and she exclaimed: "Hey, how about if next time I bring my video camera?"
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