Breaking Even: Playing with the Boys
Stories surrounding my efforts to "break" even par in one round of golf
I have never shot under par in my life. I have shot even par 72 a number of times and had some close-calls. I have also had quite a few not-so-close-calls during which I was under-par late in the round, including a very public crash and burn on an early episode of Strapped, a golf travel show made by No Laying Up. The rest of the meltdowns, I have tried to mostly forget.
I think that I have always wrestled a great deal with what it means to “compete” in the way that coaches might say to a team “let’s compete out there.” In those times I wondered, “What does that mean? Am I doing that? Will thinking about ‘competing’ help me to throw a strike here instead of a ball?” And as you might have already concluded, these are NOT the kind of thoughts that your coach wants going through your mind when he calls you to “compete”. I also realized as an adult that I have a significant attention deficit issue. If you have had that kind of diagnosis as an adult you might have had flashbacks like I did. Memories of striking out a third batter in a row and then being caught off guard that the inning was over, when the catcher rolls the ball back to the mound and my teammates start jogging past me to the dugout. There was also the time that the offensive coordinator kept telling me to not snap the ball (as the QB) until he waved his hand. We were trying to run out the clock to win the game. I received that information, called the play in the huddle, approached the line and then immediately started the snap count. 3 times in a row! Luckily we made an unlikely first down during those 3 plays. It has to be very rare in football that a coach calls a time-out in order to come up with a plan to help the QB remember to run out the clock.
I loved and do love sports. I love the action, the movement, and to be honest, I do love winning. But for whatever reasons, whatever it is that takes place in that moment where a person crosses over into what is called “competing” has been a mystery to me.
This is some of what takes place around the 13th or 14th hole of an under par round. As if a spirit escapes my brain through my ear and latches on to the shaft of my club in the backswing. The elegant and powerful display of precision and grace that has been my routine for the last 2+ hours becomes just the tiniest variation of itself and by the time that same shaft is behind my other ear, something has gone very wrong. It is not always perceptible to the naked eye, but the spirit of the competitor in me feels mocked. Like when the freshman who was invited to dress out with the varsity is asked by a bench-warming senior, “why are you even showering?” after a game in which neither of them left the dugout. The questions come rushing into my psyche, “Did you think that you belonged here? Under par? What did you think… that you were going to shoot 68? Psssssh”. This makes it sound much more dramatic than it feels now that I am an “adult.” In fact, stories about the meltdowns on 15 through 18 can often be much more fun to hear and to tell. But every now and then it goes the other way. My favorite time was in the summer of 2015.
It had become a routine that summer for Tuesday nights, I would leave work and go walk as many holes as I could until it was time for my wife to come play in the 2.5 tennis league that she had finally joined. She would hand off the boys and I would take them to the pool until she was done. This was one of the charmed American summers of my memory when my dad offered to pay for a summer pool membership for his grandkids to swim, and then just paid for the full club membership as well.
Another member and I were held up behind the alumni tournament from the local university baseball team. He planned to play 9 and practice, but I wanted to see how many holes I could get in. For my purposes, the beauty of this course was that it was extremely walkable and that it played back towards the clubhouse parking lot on 9,16, and 18. I made the turn at 2 under par just as the course was clearing from the 4-man scramble. My partner made his way to the practice range and I thought, “I can make a solo charge at a career round by myself.” I had about an hour to play the back before my wife would arrive with my kids. I knew that if I faltered by 16, I could shut it down and just ease up to the pool. Playing by yourself during a great round means that you feel a freedom that allows you to play the way you know you should and not the way that you think looks good. But it also means that no one ever kicks your ball back to you for a generous gimme when you’ve already stumbled a bit. There is no one to say, “that’s good for bogey.”
A couple of anxious tee shots resulted in a couple of bogeys and I was back at even par. A double on 15 sealed it for me. I was two over par coming down 16, back towards the clubhouse. A combination of nerves, bad swings, and the realization that even if I had been 6 under par, my wife would need me to take the kids so that she could experience her new-found joy that gymnast/cheerleader types find when they realize that even as an adult can still learn stick-and-ball sports with people of their own skill level (kudos to you, USTA). I met the family minivan in our regular parking spot and opened the door to my squealing shirtless boys in their swimsuits. No sunscreen required since it was a late evening swim in the shade. “How’d you play, dad?” my wife said (it is funny how quickly you start to refer to your spouse as “mom/dad” in front of your kids). “Actually I was playing great, but I kind of stumbled coming in, I was 2 over through 16, I would have had to go birdie, birdie to match my best round and the wheels were coming off.” For some reason at that moment, it occurred to me that playing two holes with my sons (ages 4 and 2) was manageable and that if in fact I did go birdie, birdie, it would be a round that I’d never forget. I double strapped my bag, unbuckled the car seats, took their tiny hands and headed to the pro-shop to ask to commandeer a golf cart for 2 quick holes (the perfect number of holes for my kids to think it was fun the whole time.)
Well, as you might have guessed by this point, I birdied 17. It was a par 5 that I played as a three shot hole like a responsible father should. On each shot, I removed the key from the cart and parked it far enough away that even if they disobeyed and wandered towards me, I could swing with my mind clear of any chance that they were in the way. [Check the cart, make sure that Benji and Henry were still in their seats, find the target, take aim, swing, return my eyes to the cart.] This is apparently the perfect pre-shot routine for me because I hit every shot straight and true. After each shot, I would look at my boys and raise my arms like Justin Leonard did at the Ryder Cup and they would raise their arms and cheer. Even in the moment, I had the thought that there will be a day when they will be able to tell when I mess up and be able to form their own opinions of how well I am doing. I will not always be able to convince them that everything is fine simply by clapping and cheering for them or for myself. Maybe it was the fact that all of those thoughts were going through my head (their safety, my love for them, their love for me, and the fact that for now, in their eyes it did not matter where the ball went). Maybe that is why it was so easy to hit it where I wanted. I was in that magic space that I hope all golfers get to experience where one is playing perfectly and it doesn’t matter. The pool is waiting, my wife is learning to play tennis, the sun is lowering behind the pines such that not only can you see the shadows around the edges of the bunkers, but it seems like each blade of grass has its own shadow. When you look across the fairway, it is not just green, it is a radiant green speckled with the tiniest deep blue shadows that tell you that within an hour, you will not be able to see your ball at all, and that you will be sitting on the edge of the pool and splitting a country club hamburger 4 ways because tennis is over and we agree that if we all share one hamburger (with sweet potato fries for Henry) we can both share a margarita, and it won’t be such a splurge.
On 17, I hit my wedge to a distance that anyone would have kicked it away and congratulated me for a “sweet birdie.” Instead, I got to remove the key, grab my putter and bring my boys onto the green to repair the pitch mark, and explain to them that I “spun that one back” as if they cared. I took a picture of how close it was (in case I needed to validate my score to my brother), and then I nervously rolled it in for the “sweet birdie.” The eighteenth is a par 4 that has a large two-tiered green that pitches toward the fairway. It requires a tee shot with some restraint and then an approach shot over water that comes within a few feet of the front of the green. [Key out, grab tee, walk to tee box, check boys, hit, check boys, return to cart.] The ball was in perfect position. I clipped the next shot perfectly and it stopped 10 feet behind the hole. A downhill breaker to shoot even par with my two sons watching. I remember thinking very briefly that it had been a fun journey and that I can’t let a two putt from here ruin the experience that I had had to this point. As I unloaded the boys from the cart and began to walk towards the green I thought, nope, there is NO WAY that I miss this. It has been too good. I have gotten too excited about telling my wife. I have gotten too excited about my kids seeing the putt fall and knowing for sure even without cheering that I had done something very good. Maybe that is the way “competitors” think. “It has to go in.” Maybe that is the way that Derek Jeter thinks as he is running towards the stands to catch a foul ball before spilling into the first row, or when he relays a throw from the outfield to get the out at home plate. “This is going to work.” No doubt about it.
I released the putter, the ball trickled down the line, took the little break, straightened up and crept over the edge. I gave one of those primal guttural yells that wells up in me when something special happens. I tend to catch those yells early in my throat such that the unreleased emotion becomes tears. If I have learned anything over the years it is that emotions are complex and that I do not have a handle on them. It is part of why I have tried to start writing things out more and more. I saw the smiling faces of my boys and they were cheering too, caught slightly off guard by my teary eyes when I scooped them up to celebrate as if Peter Kostis was walking towards me with a backpack microphone and a camera man. It is special to think that all three of us fully expected that ball to go in the hole. I got to live for a moment in that space with them where the ball goes in because it is supposed to. I matched the best round of my life finishing birdie, birdie with my two sons watching and cheering. It was as if everything about “competing” became so much clearer and so much fuzzier at once. The magic of the moment had released all the negative tension that makes you yank it left, and yet there is no recipe for that, no map to that area in my soul, no formula to achieve that combination of joy and hope and magic and memory. It is just one of those moments that golf can give you. You take those moments and hold them in your hand like you would hold a baby bird (the same way that they tell us that we should hold the club when the shots matter the most.) The moments that show you that it is actually not “the shot” that matters the most.
