“Avoid this and head right.” The hub points to two, low wooden hitching post barricades about two feet high with a gap, perfectly sized for a golf cart, between them.
“But they’ve left room for a cart,” I protest, unwilling to go around when I could go through.
“Go right! They don’t want us there.” The hub says, using his Voice of Finality.
“But there’s space for a cart!” The Voice of Obstinance rings out.
“TURN RIGHT!”
The hub’s Voice of Authority doesn’t get used often, but when it does, I listen. And not just because the volume is hard to ignore, but because that tone means—not 100% of the time, but perhaps 97.5% of the time—he’s probably correct.
I crank the golf cart to the right, bouncing over another set of tree roots and eyeing the fairway suspiciously. “Why would they leave a gap if they don’t want us driving through it?”
A break in the blacktop path jolts the cart, and our water bottles tip sideways.
“Slow down!” The hub yells and grabs onto the dash as I accelerate around a corner.
The sunscreen slides to the far side of the basket, and I jerk to a stop before the green, still wet with morning dew at 8:30.
Golf is a game of etiquette, politesse and rules. Don’t talk during another golfer’s backswing. Don’t talk to another golfer’s shots. Don’t place the bag on a tee box. Watch where you stand. Watch where you walk. Yell “Fore.” Fix your ball mark. Obey the cart path rules.
But honestly, why leave a gap in a fence if not to drive through it?
I walk up to my ball and putt it in, a rare one-putt that makes me leap in the air in a happy dance until I remember my father’s horror when I did the same on his course two decades ago.
Golf is a game of chastising.
“Don’t jump! You’ll ruin the green!”
None in our party are avid golfers. We know the basics, and some of us have golfed more than others in the past. We now golf 1-2 times per year, never more than 3-4 times. My typical game is a zig-zagging left to right towards the green, with the occasional straight shot up the fairway.
The hub connects on his next drive and blasts one straight down the fairway. Mine slices right, nearly beheading a squirrel, and my ball hits a massive spruce and disappears in its needles. I leap into the golf cart – one of the perks of playing – and tear towards the spruce, catching air as the cart shoots over a tree root and down a steep hill.
“For fuck’s sake, slow down!” The hub orders.
I speed up.
These gas-powered golf carts have governors to control the speed, so even when I floor it, we’re not going more than 10-15 km per hour. Sure, the tight turns and steep descents can get the pulse racing, but I’ve yet to reach two wheels.
Years ago, when the hub and I first attended his employer’s golf tournament, we were paired with the owner, Ken, and his wife, Elaine. It’s a best-ball tourney, meaning that everyone hits their own ball, and the best ball placement is chosen as the starting point for everyone’s next ball. It’s a quick way to stick together and play together, and we play for an overall team score.
Living in the mountains, nothing in our area is flat. Not highways, not cities, not golf courses. So on that first morning, as the dew sparkled and shone over the rolling course, we perhaps should have used a bit more caution. Elaine’s ball ended up at the bottom of a steep hill, and as we weren’t going to use her ball, she jumped in the golf cart to get it.
Despite the governor on the gas-powered cart, it began to pick up speed as it headed downhill.
Oh no, I thought.
The cart accelerated towards a tree, and Elaine hit the brakes.
“Oh shit!” Ken ran down the hill, waving his arms as the cart skid on the wet grass, its bald tires gliding like my sister when we set up a shower curtain slippy-slide on our front lawn, just before her concussion. The brakes caught and Elaine’s cart flipped onto two wheels, turned 180 degrees, then landed on all four wheels facing us.
Golfing carts on hills and wet grass can be dangerous, I remember, as I screech to a halt next to my ball. “I don’t think I have enough room to hit,” I say, as my club nearly strikes the cart on my practice swing.
“Always park to the right of the ball,” the hub admonishes. He puts the cart in reverse. I think the back-up beeper is bad form on a golf course – but what do I know? I hit my ball then elbow him out of the driver’s seat.
Speed is critical in golf, and I’m on it.
Another golf rule – let faster groups play through so they don’t have to wait for us to zig-zag across the fairway. We’ve already let a single guy play through on Hole 1 and two women on Hole 2. Now we’ve got a group of men following us – four of them in three carts – and one of their balls rolls up behind me as I prepare to chip my ball onto the green on Hole 10.
“Hey!” I exclaim to the hub. “They’re shooting too close to us.”
“Nah, they’re okay,” he says. “But we’ll let them play through at the next tee.”
We finish the hole, tee off from the next and wait for the group behind us. I eye them suspiciously.
Big men – Bacon Burger Men with Extra Fries and a large Shake big – they line up one-by-one to slam their balls down the middle of the fairway from the long-shot blue tees. “We’re playing with the two groups behind us,” one says. “If you can leave the tees on the Par 3 greens, we’d appreciate it.”
They quickly disappear, and we begin sidewinding our way up the fairway again. We play Ready Golf, which I interpret as “hit the ball as quickly as you can and keep moving.”
None of our group are serious enough to care about the score – in fact, no one’s keeping score. We celebrate the small victories – a par on one hole, an excellent chip on another, a drive that goes straight up the fairway as intended.
Soon the next group of men is upon us, and we let them play through at the next tee, having lost our forward momentum due to our corkscrew approach to the green.
I motor up the fairway in the cart but stop as another hitching-post barrier blocks me.
“What the heck?” I ask the hub. “Why can’t I go onto the fairway?”
“You can,” he replies. “See the gap?”
“It’s the same size gap you told me not to go through last time,” I complain.
“Yeah, but it’s on the fairway. You can drive on the fairway. Last time it led to the green.”
“Golf,” I huff. “So many rules.”
“I can drive,” the hub offers.
“No!”
We don’t talk about my control problem. What’s there to talk about? Just hand over the keys.
I park beneath a big spruce as my friend lines up her approach to the green. As she’s mid-swing, I notice our cart is in the line of fire.
Bad park job.
“Oh shit!” The hub dives onto the grass, and I exit to the far side of the cart.
She shanks right, and we’re clear. Thank god she doesn’t hit like the Burger Men.
None of us do. We’re amateurs in every sense of the word, but we reach the green just like everyone else. Without keeping score, we take an extra shot or drop ball here or there when way off target. I’ve never liked rules anyways.
On Hole 17, the hub lands near the water hazard. A half dozen geese emerge from the reeds in a huff and waddle onto the course. The hub lines up his ball, and the geese heckle him, honking and taunting him on his practice swing. They go ballistic, screeching and trumpeting when he hits it onto the fairway, then they shuffle back to the water as soon as he leaves.
I line up a rare center-of-the-fairway approach. A raven lands 100 yards away and tilts his head my way as if daring me to hit him. I come awfully close without even trying, that’s how good I am.
We reach the 18th hole, and when our final putts are tapped in, we high five each other and celebrate the end of another golf adventure. We followed most of the rules, and though our pace wasn’t the fastest, we survived to play another day. No upset carts, no thrown clubs.
And while we weren’t the speediest, I certainly tried. The carts definitely made our game speedier. If only we didn’t have to hit so many darn little balls….