{"id":179,"date":"2013-04-27T11:46:26","date_gmt":"2013-04-27T15:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/?p=179"},"modified":"2013-04-27T11:46:26","modified_gmt":"2013-04-27T15:46:26","slug":"poor-golfing-like-ignored-crushes-and-reckless-driving-are-fore-gone-conclusions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/?p=179","title":{"rendered":"Poor golfing, like ignored crushes and reckless driving, are fore gone conclusions!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"prince-golf-course-825x525-2c\"<\/a> \"mario-kart-\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Spring is in the air in the northeast, well, that\u2019s if a 60 degree day excites you. Despite the teasingly slow rise in temperature there are several things which signal the change in season \u2013 aggressive crocus pushing its way out of the ground, a lawn which resembles my hairline (some growing in some places, some not growing in others), and The Masters.<\/p>\n

To me The Masters Golf<\/a> tournament in early April signals the onset of Spring whether the rest of the country is ready or not. It\u2019s inspirational – the golf course always looks great; the flowers are in bloom and most everybody is looking out their own windows saying, \u201cdo we live in the same country as Augusta, Georgia?\u201d<\/p>\n

The sport of golf for me has always been a love\/hate relationship. It reminds me of a middle school crush on a girl who doesn\u2019t even know you\u2019re alive, or just doesn\u2019t care. That\u2019s golf. You would do anything to be good in the sport; buy the best equipment, go to the driving range, take lessons, and travel to great courses\u2026and \u201cshe\u201d just ignores your \u201ccrush\u201d by letting you spend a day driving out-of-bounds on every tee shot!<\/p>\n

Some may ask why I would even take up this sport, well here\u2019s my story…<\/p>\n

My lovely wife and I met in college. As those who have been in any relationships, getting along with the parents is the key to success.\u00a0 My late father-in-law (called Dadoo later by his grandchildren) was a dentist who adored his game of golf.\u00a0 He would play every weekend, and sneak out on the occasional afternoon because he could make his own schedule.\u00a0 When it was clear that I was going to be hanging around the family for a while, Dadoo asked me whether I\u2019d ever played golf before or would be interested in picking up the sport\u2026relationship-builder that I am, of course said yes, and we were off.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure most of you know that in nearly all cases, \u201cdentist\u201d means \u201cperfectionist\u201d and so he clearly operated by the rules in his work and on the golf course.\u00a0 Fine with me; I\u2019d had some exposure to the sport in high school, as my roommate taught me the fine art of caddying while he played our school course. So, I was pretty well schooled in the etiquette of the sport, but never really swung a club with much success.<\/p>\n

Dadoo would take me to his local club to play and on family vacations as well.\u00a0 Patience was definitely a virtue as I went through a horrid period of learning the game.\u00a0 Like any perfectionist, Dadoo held me to following the rules early on\u2026out of bounds \u2013 tee it up again, count all the strokes, handing out very few gimmies.\u00a0 A decent and consistent golfer, when we would go to places like Myrtle Beach<\/a> with great courses, Dadoo was happy to take me to the \u201cgoat patch\u201d type courses which were cheap and full of hackers like me. Have to say as I\u2019ve taken my own children to these courses as well, and I\u2019ve had new-found respect for Dadoo (and his commitment to my learning the game) who had to just hate playing on those tracks.<\/p>\n

Well, finally my game was up to speed and I was allowed out to play with the big boys.\u00a0 Our family vacations were lots of fun as we would play great courses, and always hold the \u201cin-laws vs. the outlaws\u201d tournament each year for bragging rights over many, many Coors Lights.<\/p>\n

When not on vacation, Dadoo would come to our area and bring his clubs. Not having a local club membership, we were often victims of the public courses in the area both in terms of cost, quality and long, long waiting times and rounds of golf.<\/p>\n

One such course was in the town next to ours and had a strict rule about non-residents teeing off after 2pm.\u00a0 The course was a goat path (sparse and hilly), where a bike helmet would have made more sense than a visor\u2026but hey, it was golf.<\/p>\n

One weekend, we had a relatively late tee time.\u00a0 We had contracted a golf cart, and the dude (clearly from the Sopranos cast) behind the desk in the pro shop said that he didn\u2019t care if we were playing 18 holes – he wanted the cart back at 5pm.<\/strong> Agreeing to the terms, off we went.<\/p>\n

I remember that we made the turn and teed off of the 10th<\/sup> hole, probably around 4:50 pm.\u00a0 We discussed the cart situation and decided we weren\u2019t going to walk with our bags as we couldn’t be back by dark.<\/p>\n

I think it was after we teed off of the 11th<\/sup> hole and as we were proceeding to our balls in the fairway a scene out of Mario Karts<\/strong><\/em> occurred. Chasing, yes chasing us were two other carts from the pro shop, one of which had our Soprano friend driving and screaming for us to return the cart.\u00a0 Picture Mario and Luigi being attacked by Donkey Kong. Adding to the horror is if you\u2019d ever been in a car with Dadoo, you would know this wouldn\u2019t deter him\u2026in fact, he simply sped up<\/strong> and the race was on\u2026up and down hills!<\/p>\n

Yes, they finally caught us and ordered us (‘youse) to\u201dget the damn carts back now\u201d\u2026.which we did and decided to head home\u2026.laughing all the way.<\/p>\n

Dadoo and I did go back to the course the next year only to learn from a memorial sign near the putting green that our Soprano\u2019s guy had passed away that winter\u2026our guess it was from reckless golf cart operating (Mario Kart karma?)\u2026or maybe he simply chased the wrong guy!<\/p>\n

Not sure I\u2019ll ever be a consistent golfer, but have Dadoo to thank for introducing me to the sport that I still have a \u201ccrush\u201d on and won’t pay attention to me\u2026.<\/p>\n

C\u2019mon golf, we don\u2019t have to date \u2013 can we at least be friends?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Spring is in the air in the northeast, well, that\u2019s if a 60 degree day excites you. Despite the teasingly slow rise in temperature there are several things which signal the change in season \u2013 aggressive crocus pushing its way out of the ground, a lawn which resembles my hairline (some growing in some places, some not growing in… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[12,27],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Clfm-2T","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=179"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":184,"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions\/184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}