A Column For Waydelle

          Hang around The Links at Sierra Blanca much at all and you’ll run into my friend Waydelle. The other day, referring to a weekly newspaper column I once wrote, Waydelle said, “I sure do miss that column. That’s the only reason I bought the paper.”

          Thing is, I hear this a lot. I know the people who say it really don’t care much about the column and are just being nice. I don’t care. I never tire of hearing it.

          Waydelle had a weird request. “Why don’t you write a column just for me?”

          So, why not? Writing about golf – writing about anything, as far as that goes — is hard. But not as hard as golf. Nothing is much harder than golf, and nothing makes much less sense.

          Heading into 2009 I was pretty much sure I had given up the sport. Here’s why. If you have devoted a whole lot of your life to total links frustration, as I have for the past 38 years, and after all that time the best you can mange is an occasional 98 from the forward tees and you reckon that’s some kind of accomplishment, well, then, here’s what you are. You are one sick puppy.

After my latest colonoscopy the doc said all was clear and I wouldn’t have to take it up the backside for another four years. It occurs to me the relief I felt then is quite similar to the relief I felt after deciding to quit golf. That is to say, giving up golf is pretty much like giving up colonoscopies.

This was all fine and excellent for a few months, this repotting myself thought, until several factors became obvious. Sheer boredom, one, missing excellent friends, two. Then there was the fact that my wife of 50 years, who thinks I am a excellent thing, started to make it clear one can have too much of a excellent thing. How can I miss you, Roberta wondered, if you will never go away?

My playing partners pretended they were glad I was back, and although I know they, too, were just being gracious, I never tire of hearing it. To protect their identity so they will not be embarrassed by the association with me, let me call these guys Dwayne the Farmer from Knox City down Abilene way, and Glenn the Shrimper out of South Texas.

These are rather recent additions to my golf friend gallery and two of genuinely nicest fellows one could meet. They’ll pretend they are looking at the mountain when you duff a shot. They will praise even the most modest of drives as if you’ve just Tiger Wooded the ball. I mean, these are pleasant fellows.

Then there’s Jack. Jovial Jack. Jack rounds out the foursome. Buddy Jack, a far superior player than I, has been a part of no less than 99 per cent of the golf drudgery I have experienced in all these 38 years. Mr. Joviality is everyone’s friend. “Hi ya’ll. Have a nice round. Leave us some pars. Har. Har. Say, ya’ll seen my ball over here? Oh, there it is, bright like a button in a goat’s ass. Thank ye, thank ye!!”

Beneath all that genial conviviality, though, lies a mean streak as wide and long as the Number 4 fairway. If it happened once it happened 400 times. I’ll get off a excellent drive. Say I hit a screamer that bounces off the cart path and manages to coax 190 yards out of the course before settling into the rough. Jack will follow with a 275-yard bomb, center cut fairway. “Not terrible if you like ‘em small,” he’ll mumble, at once feigning humility and deriding my futile effort.

Or this. We’ll smack our drives and cart on down the fairway, Jack in the pilot’s seat, and he will roll on 20 yards beyond my ball, look back and pretend surprise. “I’m sorry, I thought you used a driver!”

Nonetheless, getting back in the groove with these three guys last week was fun.  As we headed for the first tee, it occurred to me this would likely be another exercise in futility. It was, and worse. But I kept reminding myself golf is just a rather silly game, not worthy of anxiety.

For many, it is much more than that. They get their golf all mixed up with their manhood. Like, you’ll see a guy blast a towering drive, give a small chest flex, hitch up his pants and adjust his equipment. “Nailed that sumbitch!” he’ll brag as he swaggers off the tee box.

I often thought golf needs a prescription drug like the male enhancement products. Something like, PrwrStroke, to help golfers whose putters have gone wimpy. Just like the familiar TV commercials that contain “warnings” designed to make every normal male dip into his depleted 401K for a year’s supply, PrwrStroke would play the macho tune:

“Before taking PrwrStroke check with Pro Al to make sure you are fit enough for golfing activity. If you experience four or more consecutive drives rocketing 380 yards down the middle of the fairway, stick your clubs back in the bag and go find Huge Bertha.”

For my first round back I set the bar of expectations so low I pretty much tripped over it.  I reckon the scorecard read 114 at day’s end, but I am honestly certain I slipped a stroke or two along the way. It is not intentional. Frankly, when you are running up a 13 it is hard to keep track of the damn things.

The first nine was honestly uneventful and as we made the turn and completed Number 10, we came upon Waydelle, who camps at the Number 11 tee box like a plump rooster waiting for his hens to happen by. Waydelle is a excellent fellow hailing from Granbury, a retired teacher.

I am not sure why Waydelle hangs out at Number 11. Maybe he just doesn’t want to go home. Or maybe it is some kind of volunteer task, like, perhaps, golf’s version of working at the Thrift Store.  A prison work release program? I don’t know.

Waydelle claims to be selling some kind of chances. You pay him a certain amount of money and if your tee shot lands on the green, you get something back. Whatever. Waydelle says he is doing this for the golf course, but my theory is that Shaun, the golf course manager, does not know Waydelle has homesteaded the Number 11 tee box.  I reckon Waydelle has devised a nifty way to supplement his Social Security check.

If it’s a real job, Waydelle has one of the better gigs at the golf course. I see Laurie, Bill and Olivia at the Pro Shop constantly dealing with some guy from, say, Midland, who insists someone on the phone three weeks ago promised the course could accommodate his party of 32 today. Sure, and Phil Mickelson is going to send his private jet so I can give him some putting tips.

Thankfully, The Links also employs Francine and Cindy to keep us fed, and a bunch of guys who serve as “course marshals” to make sure we heed cart rules, which, for all I can tell, don’t prohibit much except sinking your cart into the pond at Number 8.

Anyway, when you drive up to Number 11 Waydelle will say something like this: “Hi, fellows, it’s 179 yards to the center of the green today.” Well, whoop tee do! That’s supposed to be helpful? It’s also 2,142 miles from The Links at Sierra Blanca, 105 Sierra Blanca Road in Ruidoso, New Mexico, to the middle of Times Square in Manhattan. But I’m not getting a direct flight there, either.

For the 134^th time, Waydelle tries to entice my participation and, for the 134^th time I tell him no way. I have never hit this green and there is absolutely no reason to expect I will today. Dwayne the Farmer, Glenn the Shrimper and Jovial Jack have already launched successful shots from the 176-yard blue tees. I start my embarrassing walk to the 154-yard white tees, used only by the very ancient or the very frail or the grossly uncoordinated.

Setting up and using the six pre-impact seconds to run through the 34 basic swing tips Pro Al gave me before he gave up in frustration and refused to admit I was his golf student, I gripped the club exactly the way Al told me to. The club, by the way, was a 7-wood on a hole where most borderline competent golfers would use an 8 or 9 iron.

An incredible thing was about to happen. Shifting my weight and powering through the ball exactly the way Al taught me, I pulverized my Precept Laddie. It streaked just off the ground a excellent 50 yards to the left of where I aimed it.  Screaming past the pesky ditch, the ball struck a rock, took a wild and fortuitous bounce forward over two moguls, bounded down the slope, rolled onto the green, and came to rest four feet from the hole.

I gave a small chest flex, hitched my pants, adjusted my equipment. “Nailed that sumbitch,” I bragged, swaggering off the tee box. (I know you are wondering. Yes, I missed the putt and I don’t want further conversation about it.)

My first round back proceeded with small additional drama, but as Pro Al’s lessons started to fail me even more drastically, I threatened on Number 16 to tee off from the Ladies’ Tee, giving me a 134 yard head start over my three friends standing on the blue tees.

“Go ahead,” said Glenn the Shrimper, “but we will make you squat to pee!”

That’s when it hit me! I flashed back to the Number 9 hole. I had hit a pretty excellent drive. Dwayne the Farmer arrived at my ball, looked at it carefully, paced the 60 yards to where his Callaway rested, looked back and said, “You could build a Wal-Mart between our balls!” 

Glenn and Dwayne were turning hideous on me! These two guys, who heretofore had never even thought an unkind word, all of a sudden were Gutter Glenn and Dirty Dwayne. And I knew why.  They had been hanging around Jovial Jack too long. Give ancient Jacko enough time and he could make the Pope take up cussing.

Trudging up 18, dehydrated, hungry and really fatigued, my spirits sagging, the weight of a disastrous day burdening my shoulders, it occurred to me my earlier choice to quit this stupid game was probably spot on.

But, what the heck, I’ll be back. I’d miss my ancient buddy Waydelle.