Sep 27, 2016 4 min read

The passing of golf legend Arnold Palmer Sunday reminded me I once loved the game he played. But I haven’t played for almost 20 years.

I wasn’t yet in my teens in the late 1950s, when the man everyone called “Arnie” made golf accessible to everyday folks. Despite his fame, I never even thought of playing golf because all my sports heroes were baseball players, with nicknames like Maz and Duke and Moose. Golfers had uncool nicknames: Golden Bear, Fuzzy, Chi-Chi. And there were no golf bubblegum cards to collect. Thus, my reaction to golf was much the same as that to liver: I hated it until I tried it. Well, that’s not quite true. I still hate liver.

I was coaxed into golf relatively late in life by people who described it as being fun, as in, “you really don’t have to work at it.” I believed them. Hitting a ball that doesn’t move into a hole that doesn’t move. How hard could it be? They dragged me out of bed in the middle of the night – any time before noon is night to a musician – and we drove 45 minutes to a not-very-good course whose main attraction was that most of the fairways were downhill.

I have to admit the salvaged Kennywood bumper cars we drove around in were fun, but I was baffled by the assortment of sticks the others used to whack the defenseless ball. I chose the lightest stick, used it on every shot and would have used it to push the ball into the hole if they had let me. Or if I had gotten anywhere near the hole. How’d I do?

Let’s just say after two holes, I quit keeping score.

My partners kept talking about hitting the green in 3; I hit the ball off the tee in 3. Hit the fairway in 6. Hit the green in 15. Minutes. Putted so many times that my ball tracks in the dew on the green looked like orbital plots for a space shuttle mission. After nine holes, we quit. They said I did just fine; I didn’t play again for 18 months.

But when I did, a curious thing happened: I improved. Actually made par on No. 9. This is the fiendishness of golf. No matter how badly you play all the other holes, the evil golf pixies almost always allow you to do well on the final hole, instilling a false sense of talent.

So, I bought my own “clubs,” as an instructional book told me the sticks were called. Started playing every week. Never broke par, but did well enough most days that I thought a nickname was in order. So I picked one: Wuzzy. Well, actually, one of my golf buddies gave it to me after seeing one of my tee shots: “He wasn’t serious with that swing, wuzzy?”

But I persevered and even at one point took a series of lessons with a golf pro. I believe he entered a monastery after my final lesson.

But about 25 years ago changing circumstances didn’t allow me to play nearly as often, so my skills eroded somewhat. How much?

Last time I played, around 1998, I stood on the first tee with three men from my office. They pointed out that the caddy shack was not far off the fairway, about 50 yards to my left. “Don’t hit it in there,” they warned, facetiously.

“Don’t worry,” I scoffed. “I always slice.”

My drive hooked left, went straight through the open garage door of the shack, rattled around and came ricocheting back out onto the fairway. We finished the round, but I never played again. I like to think Arnie breathed a sigh of relief that day.

But now that he’s gone and I have more time, I may just hit the links again. I’ll be easy to find.

Just follow the sound of the sobbing greenskeeper.