Rob is playing a GA PGA Junior Tour tournament next week and I can’t caddy (at his age he is starting to move out of parent-caddy scenarios) and I can’t wait just to spectate – and I’m sure he can’t wait for me to get off his back, I mean bag, either.
Two holes in and we’re already at each other. Funny how it is so often the case, the first two holes – and then we tend to calm down. But right now, before we find our rhythm, it’s his negativity – double, then triple – that’s firing my rhetoric which has escalated somehow to: I’m not caddying for you anymore, you can carry your bag and walk your ill-tempered self …..
Which is countered with: I don’t need 10 minute speeches on every hole. I had a double then triple, no wonder I’m ill-tempered.
Being ill-tempered led you to a double then triple.
Ill-tempered? Just say annoyed. It sounds like you’re an old person.
Hole 3 brings a parr and he’s in a lighter frame of mind.
Chunks an iron on the next Par 5 lay-up hole, but follows it with a beautiful hybrid soaring into the sky.
I swear if that ball falls and embeds deep in the mud I’m going to be so mad ……
The thing about golf, I say, is that you can’t be mad at anything.
Amazingly his response was just: I know.
It was a little muddy, but not terribly so. The approach landed 3 yards on an uphill lie off the green and he opted to putt it. So much for the lag putts he had practiced the previous day with his coach – he bombed that ball straight at the pin – hit it and it fell. A parr is welcome any which way it happens!
As we drive to the next tee box Rob says, about the boy he is playing with: Colin is just like Chris Traeger.* He is so upbeat and positive. And he repeats what he says all the time. I am literally playing with Chris Traeger!
Well, if you’re going to play golf with a fictional character – Chris Traeger is probably a good one.
As it turned out, however, the course got the better of our little Chris Traeger. His confidence collapsed and he became tearful and sad as we made the turn and battled bogeys, brambles and lost balls. Rob was not immune from the tears either unfortunately following a particularly good drive that landed extremely unluckily in the long river grass surrounding a sunken water drain. If the ball had landed just a couple of inches further down, according to the rules official on hand, he would have gotten water drain relief. Anyway, he punched at it and embedded it further. And it was down the drain from there.
At least for that hole. He rebounded with parr on the next and the 3 after that.
It wasn’t terrible.
So in the practice round for the Regional Tournament we played at Pinehurst last weekend we channeled Chris Traeger. Today we played with him (at least for the first 9 holes) and we’ll end this post with one of his literally most amazing pieces of advice – which might help me make it around the golf course next time: If I keep my body moving and my mind occupied at all times, I will avoid falling into a bottomless pit of despair.
It’s kind of why I write this blog as I push that bag around the golf course.
*Rob Lowe’s character on the TV show, Parks & Recreation.
