PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

My father kept his golf clubs in the garage, with the golf bag standing up and with the woods and irons leaning against the concrete wall.  Whether there were different colored leaves on the ground in the fall, whether there was a half a foot of snow on the driveway in the winter, whether everything was wet in the spring, or whether it was truly summertime and golf season, the kids in our family could always count on those golf clubs (or other sets of golf clubs) leaning against the wall in the garage.  Through family graduations, weddings, and other celebrations, and through family problems and even tragedies, those golf clubs were there.  Throughout the entire Vietnam War, Watergate scandal, both Reagan administrations and on, you could find those golf clubs leaning against the concrete wall.  Yes, my father was a golfer, but not a very good one.  In fact, he was a very bad golfer, and at times he was a terrible golfer.  Depending on how you look at it, it was either funny or sad when my father asked me to go out at night to the garage and clean his clubs for his next day’s golf outing with other lawyers.  Sometimes there would be new clubs in the golf bag, such as an expensive grafite driver that he once bought.  Sometimes he would leave early and take those clubs out to the driving range or to the practice green in order to get some extra shots in before playing.  Sometimes he would even take the clubs out of the garage and down to Florida during family vacations or to Arizona or Nevada for golf trips with his friends.  But none of this was very helpful- not the expensive golf clubs, not the extra practice or lessons, not the golf trips.  Alas, my father almost always shot around 100.  On particularly bad days, he would go up to 110 or he would stop counting his shots.  On great days he would be down to 95 or 96.  But the amazing thing to me, now that I stop to think about it for the first time, is that I never really saw my father get mad or frustrated at his poor play or at the reality that he could never ever become a good golfer.  (And I was out on the golf course a lot of times with him.)  My father loved to be outside and on the golf course, he got excited when he made a great shot, and he just didn’t care at all about being great.



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