Day 1
Rob has just set off on his first 2 day, no-caddy tournament. The GA PGA Junior Tour has a very accommodating policy of – on the first day – trying to tee siblings off close to each other if possible – so it is easy for parents to watch both players. And in today’s case it is possible – Bear tees off last in his age group and Rob first in his. There are sets of brothers in both pairings. Except Rob says to me before he even tees off on hole1: I don’t want you to watch me at all. It’s too much pressure.
What? Me?
Now I have a cart and a strict policy of never watching Bear. Maybe retire to the clubhouse? But I hang with Bear and he goes birdie, par on the first 2 holes – so perhaps I can watch him after all! I catch up with Rob on the 8th tee box to refresh his water bottle.
Go, go, go. You made me 3 putt that hole!
I sit and stare over the dreaded 12th hole. Water, water everywhere. Bear messed this hole up so badly last year and the memory lingers uneasily. Over on the 11th I see a Rules Official helping Rob drop out of a hazard and my foreboding deepens.
I will need to decide what to do if Bear messes up and comes under pressure. Will I be a source of comfort – in which case, suck it up buttercup and stay? Or do I add additional pressure like Rob says? Of course when you’re playing well and in the zone it doesn’t much matter who or what is watching – and we seem to be lurking in the periphery of that enviable state at the moment.
Back to hole 12, Bear’s drive is good. Lay-up is ok but still a hefty shot across the lake. And he’s on! As for waiting for Rob – my nerves and his comfort level will not handle me hanging around on this hole for him – but the layout of the course is such that you’re not escaping the hole 12 visual quickly. Rob and his playing partner are waiting on the other side for Bear to finish on the green. Both are well positioned for their approach across the lake. I look down for a moment and up as they hit. The water is calm – it’s over! Yes – on! But if hole 12 is intense, 13 is intimidating – between tee box and elevated green is mostly water – and I camp behind a tree and hope for calm water as Rob takes a crack at it. And now I’m glad I didn’t stay in the clubhouse. It turns out he birdied 12 and parred 13. I am reminded of my favorite Stoic, Seneca: we suffer more from imagination than reality.
At the end of the day, at a nice little restaurant in the College town we are staying in, I ask Rob my traditional 3 questions:
What did you most enjoy about your round?
How good my drives were.
What was the most difficult thing about the day?
I could not one putt a single thing.
What surprised you about the day?
All my drives went about 210 yards.
Day 2
Bear is in the hunt in his age group and Rob is in the second group off in his – which equates to an hour between tee times and now, this morning, they both want me to watch! I see Rob off with a magnificent drive on hole 10 (starting on 10 today) and go back to get Bear at the driving range. I catch up with Rob again on the dreaded hole 12 to see him dropping a ball beside the lake. Turns out today he doubled the number of shots he took on the hole yesterday!
Maybe I shouldn’t watch at all ….. but the other boy’s mom rides along beside him as he walks and hovers around the green like a clucking hen. So I feel maybe I should join the group. And when I do catch up on hole 14 green, Rob is hacking out of heavy undergrowth, having bladed a shot into there from a greenside bunker. The clucking mom beside him counting his shots. It is a complete nightmare. 8 on hole 12, 11 on hole 14.
I’m already 13 over!
That’s golf, I say.
Is it also golf to have sand in your shoes and flies caught in your hair?
Sometimes it is, I suppose.
We chat a little bit. He’s not emotional at all – in fact completely calm. We agree that, at this point, the round is simply going to be a test of mental strength. How well he can grind through the rest of it. He says his goal for the back 9 is to shoot 10 shots better than on the front.
I want to go and leave him to his challenge unpressured by my presence, but I’m reluctant to leave him with this mother/son combo who are – I can’t put my finger on it really – just perhaps a little unfriendly. The boy walks in front of Rob’s line, never waits for him to hit, tees off first even when he doesn’t have the honors…….
We wait on the next hole – a dogleg left. Rob shouts up to me sitting on the hill overlooking the fairway – can I hit?
I tell him to wait up, the players in front are still in the dip.
The kid shouts: he can hit, he won’t get it that far.
Grind on little brother!
I leave both my boys on their own for a while. Honestly, it is better that way. For all of us.
I catch up with Rob with 2 holes left to play. He sees me on the green and waves me away – which can be either a good or bad sign. My nerves are so shot at this point that it really doesn’t matter.
It turns out it was a good sign. He rebounded with an impressive (for him) 41 on the back 9 on a course that is, at around 6,000 yards from the whites the longest he’s ever played, and ranked among the most difficult in Georgia.
At the end of the day, it’s just a game – and I tell him gently, as the night closes in, that I love him, he did the best he could, and even if he didn’t accomplish all he had planned, I love him anyway.
