As the Yaki Indian wise man Don Carlos said, the decline of old age is the toughest challenge of all. I don’t have to tell you that family members are bed-ridden, lifelong friends die off while you still owe them dinner at your place, and events of your early life are a distant muddle but for a few photos. You surely have less bounce in your step – but you still have a step. The challenge of old age is to put any life back in Life, while you are still walking.
So the time is near for you to begin actually playing golf. This could be your way, and perhaps your only way, of fighting back the early withering of your soul. And there are signs already that you may succeed. Hopefully (as I suggested) you have picked up a 3-wood and a 9-iron and a putter – at your local Goodwill store for a total of $15. Hopefully you’ve found an empty field for hitting the 3 and the 9 and a carpet for your putter to get the feel of these clubs. And hopefully you have then with the 3-wood and the 9-iron knocked some balls on a low cost driving range, and the putter on the totally free greens at most public golf courses.
Life is short and you must now begin golf in earnest. Do not wait for golf to come to you. There are usually pitch-and-putt courses in most towns, and some have holes up to 200 yards. Often their fees for seniors (and super seniors over 75) are extremely reasonable. In more remote locations, you’ll just have to start on the long course with a nine-hole rate in the off-peak hours midday. However, the longer pitch-and-putt courses (sometimes called “Executive 9s”) are probably your best way to start experiencing real golf.
Do that even before you have tried to master any stroke or any club. Do that if you have a few weeks wait to take inexpensive group lessons. Time may not be on your side. Here is my cantankerous and surely controversial opinion: Even though you may be inept and the experience somewhat frustrating, you need to understand golf in the context of playing golf. Only after you have tried to play will you know what lessons you need the most, what equipment you need the most, and what kind of practice you need to start…now.
We’ll talk about those things in short order. but do not be afraid either of embarrassment or hurting yourself or wasting money or worse, embarking on something so huge you can never complete it…. Many others are as embarrassed as you, you adjust yourself immediately to anything that hurts, you can begin cheaply, and as for something so huge…
To get our attention at our age, it practically has to be huge. I had the good fortune to be at the 2012 Harvard Commencement speech by Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the President of Liberia and a Nobel Prize winner as the first female leader of an African nation. She told the soon-to-be-comfortable Harvard grads that they would aspire to goals, but she warned that if they were predictable and safe goals, these would drain their life of passion. She told the soon-to-be-comfortable Harvard grads that their lives would mean little if their goals, right now, were not “absolutely terrifying”, almost impossible to imagine reaching.
Maybe she was not talking to you, or certainly not talking about golf. Or maybe she was….Without demeaning her message or the potentials of Youth, I think that if you are just starting out on golf then probably it is scary. Scary is probably how a round of golf looks to you. HUGE. Impossible. So this should be of comfort, and be your great luck, in the Time of Challenge. You should welcome this new thing you are afraid of…because by now you are more ready than you know.
