The Golf Gods

by Lawrence Martin

drlarry437@gmail.com

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The golf gods are not nice. They’re not benevolent either.

Maybe you don’t believe in golf gods. Or maybe you’re one of those non-golfer mono-theists, and just assume there can only be one golf god. If so, doesn’t really matter what you think. Most of us who play the game have enough firsthand experience to believe they’re real. And there’s surely a group of them, not just one. Don’t think just one could cover all the courses and all the millions of golfers.

If the ancient Greeks had played golf, they would have identified the golf gods for us. They certainly knew about not-nice gods and goddesses. Nemesis was the Greek goddess of retribution and vengeance, and would be about right as the first golf god. But golf is a modern game, at least compared to discus throwing, so we’ve only learned about golf gods in modern times. Now we don’t make any distinction about gender; simplifies things to just call them all gods.

And they are a mean bunch. Get on their wrong side and you are hosed. What you really want to do is: a) never ask for their help, and b) try to stay out of sight. You can learn the first part through rigid self-control but part b, well that’s most difficult. They see every hole, every shot; some folks think they can even read your mind. I personally don’t think so, but could be wrong.

What they can do is make your ball curve left or right, skedaddle into the drink, bury itself in the sand, or skirt by the cup at the very last millisecond, even when the laws of physics state very plainly it should drop in. They can even alter the slope of the green just as you’re putting. Say you see the green slopes left to right, so you hit your ball a foot or two to the left of the cup. On its way there’s an unexplained roll, and the ball keeps going left. Whoaa! How’d that happen? The golf gods shifted the green a bit, that’s how.

One other nefarious trick they like to play. It’s called make the ball disappear on the fairway. You hit the ball, it lands some 220 yards straight down the fairway, just over a slight rise — all your playing partners agree on that fact. But when you get there the ball is nowhere to be found. That’s because the golf gods quickly scooted it over to the deep rough, or maybe even buried it underneath the short grass.

One saving grace is that when you start your round you are pretty much ignored by the golf gods. At that point they just don’t care about you. They see you alright but they don’t notice, if you get what I mean. The best analogy is the birds — geese, herons, egrets, pelicans, storks — found on many courses. They see you but don’t much care when or where you hit the ball — unless you do something to draw their attention.

Same with the golf gods. We draw their attention by doing something foolish. Like playing well when we’re not supposed to. When they see you getting too uppity, you are in for a heap of trouble. They look for uppityness, yes they do. They might leave you alone if you are humble and shy, although I’m not sure about that, so don’t quote me. But go do something uncharacteristic for your game — like shoot several pars in a row or chip in from the bunker or sink a forty-foot putt — and they will home in on you like a honeybee on a warm flower. Especially if you yell, or boast or do high fives. They hate high fives. They will get you on the next hole, or maybe the one after that.

As I said in the beginning, they are not nice. They don’t ever want to help you, only to put you in your place. And if your place is mediocre golf, that’s where you are going to stay. Try — just try — to get out of your mediocrity and they will slam you back so fast your head will spin. Three pars in a row? OK, Joe, the next hole you are in for a double bogey. No, let’s make that a triple bogey, just for laughs. Oh, they do laugh, you just can’t hear them.

“What about the God of Luck?” people often ask. “Doesn’t that god play a role, fight off the bad golf gods, intervene?” Alas, there is no such god. Luck on the golf course happens when the real, actual golf gods are busy elsewhere. Your ball hits an out-of-bounds tree and bounces back onto the fairway. That’s luck. Golf gods weren’t watching. Or your ball heads straight for a deep bunker but is stopped by a misplaced rake and so stays on the grass. Same thing. Probably you are playing so poorly anyway, the golf gods aren’t paying attention.

I have a friend who carries a handicap in the high-teens. A while back we played in a foursome and after seventeen holes his score was seventy-five. One more par on the last hole and he’d have a seventy-nine, breaking eighty for the first time. For a high handicapper, that’s a big deal: bragging rights, something you might tell your grandchildren.

He had just come off a birdie on hole number seventeen, and high-fived me and two other playing partners. I didn’t say anything but kind of had a premonition at that point. On the way to the eighteenth tee he was all “Wow, I’ve never broken eighty before.” Not boasting, really, but enough to draw the golf gods’ attention. They were likely busy with some other bloke, but now they for sure focused on my friend, standing there on the last tee box. Nothing draws their attention faster than a so-so golfer about to go and do something special.

Well, you can guess what happened next. He hooked his drive into a pond bordering the fairway. Now he’s hitting three beside that little body of water. His next shot lands in the middle of a deep greenside bunker. His fourth shot sends the ball right up against that bunker’s lip, where it gets swallowed, almost whole. It was a sight to see: a tiny portion of the white ball protruding from under the sand. My friend takes an unplayable, costing him a stroke, and is now laying five, still in the bunker.

The golf gods are laughing and my friend is on the verge of some opposite emotion. Well, his next shot gets the ball on the green, so now he’s laying six. He then makes two putts for a score of eight: what golfers call a “snowman” because that’s what an eight looks like. Purists call it a quadruple bogey. My friend called it a disaster. Actually, his final score of eighty-three is still a very respectable round for a high handicapper, but not what he was hoping for. The golf gods made sure of that.

OK, so maybe you think this golf god business is all poppycock. If you think that, then either you don’t play the game or you are naïve. The golf gods are real, and will mess with you if given an inclination. You’d best understand this aspect of the game.

Be humble, my friend. Stay quiet. And play your game.

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