Fore! Play (18 page)

H
elp me out a little. The Rules of Golf, as set forth by the United States Golf Association and the Royal and Ancient Golf
Club of St. Andrews, Scotland, are voluminous, read like federal statutes, take all the fun out of the game, and have basically
been formulated to restrict the best golfers.

But what about us? So-called bad golfers represent the vast majority and need alleviation from this veritable strangulation
by draconian regulations and restrictive covenants. Herewith, then, a few simple rules changes to aid beginners and others
suffering with high handicaps who are going to just damned
quit
if we don’t get some relief:

1. Play the closest hole. Player may at any time elect to play the closest hole regardless of numerical designation.
   
2. Since this is not billiards, player need not “call” the intended hole in advance.
   
3. If opening drive from first tee lands on or near the 9th or 18th green (usually situated near the first tee and the clubhouse),
   golfer may opt (under Rule No. 1) to play the 9th or 18th and
   quit
   .
   

   3a.  That single hole score, however, shall not be represented as a score for a complete round of 9 or 18 holes unless greater
   than par for the entire course.
   

4. Player need not play 9 or 18 distinctly
   different
   holes.
   
5. Player keeps own score, if at all.
   
6. Out-of-bounds-my-ass. There is no out of bounds—a concept for prissy unadventuresome sorts fearful of wilderness treks
   and crossing highways.
   
7. When hitting out of a private home or condominium, every effort should be made to hit ball back out of the same broken
   window ball entered.
   

   7a. If lie is in shag carpeting, ball may be placed on a flat surface such as a coffee table.
   

8. If ball is hit into “soft foods” such as shrimp, egg, or potato salads, or tiramisu, in dining room or outside “patio”
   dining areas, the foodstuffs may be eaten away from ball’s surface to diminish splatter when player hits out. Balls on “hard
   foods,” such as day-old kaiser rolls, however, must be played as they lie.
   
9. Balls hit into club swimming pool may be moved to shallow end and played.
   
10. Balls felling other golfers shall not be played off downed individuals per se.
    

    10a. Victims may be moved if they present an obstruction, but original position should be outlined in chalk.
    

11. Golfers playing balls from across adjacent roadways may employ cones or other traffic control devices.
    
12. Gimmee putts are encouraged.
    

    12a. Gimmees become longer on later holes, e.g., one foot on 1st hole, eighteen feet on 18th.
    

    12b. Entire gimmee
    holes
    may be taken, with a “fair” score recorded for the hole, such as a 2.
    

    12c. All fourth putts for triple bogeys are gimmees.
    

13. Mulligans, yes, always.
    

    13a. If mulligan is somehow worse than original shot, then a third “mcmulligan” is to be taken, and best of three played.
    

14. “Tae Kwon Do Golf” rules in effect—with use of hands and feet allowed.
    

    14a. Tosses, throws, and kicks are not sanctioned by USGA rules, and are therefore technically not strokes and need not be
    counted.
    

15. Golfers may not urinate within two club lengths of cart path.
    
16. Whiffs are practice swings (so long as player does not indicate that he or she missed by mistake).
    
17. Balls hit less than ten feet are not deemed officially “hit” balls and are not to be counted.
    
18. Player may rehit without penalty if there was a distracting noise (e.g., bird chirp)—even if noise emanated from player
    (e.g., belch or the breaking of wind).
    
19. “Forward Progress” rule is in effect. Balls rolling backward or ricocheting back from rocks, trees, carts, cars, homes,
    etc., are placed at closest point to hole achieved.
    
20. “Invisible Gallery” rule. Pros use galleries as human backstops, so any ball we hit more than five feet into the rough
    or more than ten feet past a green (where pro galleries stand) is to be placed where it would have been stopped if we, too,
    had galleries.
    
21. If playing on another fairway, in the woods, or otherwise out of sight of others in your party, let conscience be your
    guide.
    
22. Follow rules of Eco-Golf. Smashing down or standing on bushes to improve your shot encourages spring growth; same with
    pruning extraneous tree limbs; and as for clearing weeds, well, that’s practically like performing community service.
    
23. However, should taking a difficult shot potentially endanger wildlife, plants, wetlands, or sandy “beach” areas, ball
    should be moved to a less ecologically fragile area—like mid-fairway.
    
24. “Double Jeopardy” rule. This is America and no golfer can be cruelly repunished for misplay on the same hole, e.g., if
    you hit your ball from one bunker to another you get to take it out. No penalty.
    

O
kay, so I can’t beat really mediocre men or little, middle-aged women or seemingly anybody really. But, maybe I could beat
someone who’s totally
blind
.

I read an astonishing newspaper article on blind golfers—What?—that went on to tell of a big Blind Golf Association tournament
scheduled nearby. Sure. And next week there’s a blind NASCAR drivers race. C’mon. This
had
to be a joke, probably a hoax some prankster concocted and sent to a clueless newspaper editor.

Yet, when I called the country club where the tourney was supposedly taking place, instead of laughing, they confirmed it.
Elaborate hoax.

Being the naturally competitive type, unafraid of any challenge life throws at me, I tossed my (wife’s) clubs in the car,
and raced over. But, wait! Should I take a cane? Stop by and pick up my friend’s dog? I found some sunglasses in the glove
compartment and slipped them on.

Pulling into the Mt. Kisco Country Club, I had no idea what to expect, really, maybe a bunch of goof-offs in blindfolds having
their idea of a wacky golf outing. I did give the other cars wide berth, however, just in case these were truly blind golfers
driving in for the tournament.

What I found was unbelievable, an announcer heralding the opening of the annual Ken Venturi Guiding Eyes Golf Classic featuring
sixteen of the world’s best
blind golfers!
(Fifteen of these male oxymorons and one woman.) The announcer didn’t seem to be kidding, either.

But … how could this possibly
be?

The gallery intently observed as the first golfer, Keith Melick, who the announcer said had won the previous two of these
Corcoran Cup competitions, stepped to the tee. Each golfer has a coach, in this case Keith’s wife, Jean, who points him in
precisely the right direction and helps adjust his stance and his distance from the ball. The coach also gives the golfer
the same information any caddie might, such as distance to the green, positions of hazards, and so forth. Some coaches crouch
and place the clubhead directly behind the ball. And, when everything is perfectly aligned, the coach gives a “yep,” or a
word to that effect, and the golfer swings.

Let the clich豠fall where they may, I watched in absolute stunned disbelief as Keith’s opening drive took off like a shot,
straight and true, two hundred yards down the fairway. I don’t know what I expected, but not
this!
Was he, you know,
peeking?
The gallery applauded.

David Meador, Keith’s partner at this “Masters of Blind Golf” classic, stepped up and did the same thing! So did the next
guy, Pat Browne, who had a 1 handicap before going blind and who’s won this tournament seventeen times. At this point, it
wouldn’t have surprised me to see them jump in their carts and drive off.

I finally came to my senses, and tagged along with the fourth twosome, Andy Stewart from Alabama and Ron Tomlinson from England.
(They had a little trouble understanding each other at first.) Andy, thirty-three, suddenly—in the course of just forty-eight
hours—went completely blind nine years ago from a neuropathic disease. He was operating at even more of a disadvantage this
day, having suffered spinal injuries from swinging his golf clubs too hard, and now walking around with two rods, two plates,
and eight screws in his back. Other than that (and a torn ligament), he was perfectly fine. “I can’t complain,” he said with
a smile. I almost broke into tears when he said that, and might have, except the guy plays golf better than I do.

Andy routinely drove the ball well over two hundred yards. And, oh yeah, straight. He’d hit the ball, then ask where it went.
I told him that I do the very same thing. It just doesn’t take him as long to find his. He doesn’t slice it like I do, probably
because he’s not lifting his head up too soon—a common fault among slicers—to see where it went. He has certain advantages.

Andy says he’s been playing golf for six years, having learned the game after he went blind, has driven a ball 265 yards,
has scored an 83 for 18 holes and a 38 on a 9-hole course.

“Bull!” I say.

“There were witnesses,” replied Andy’s coach, his nephew David Witt.

In this tournament, they do play winter rules, which means they can roll a ball over if it’s in a divot, but other than that
it’s all fair and square. They don’t hit from the ladies’ tees, nothing like that. And unlike my rules, whiffs count and there
are no gimmees.

Andy won’t have scores that good here. This is a tough course. Sometimes I think he’s better off not being able to see some
of the downright diabolical holes. Hole 6, for example, features a tiny green precariously perched atop a veritable beach
of sand that surrounds it like a moat. Par-4. Andy bogeys the hole. The man can flat-out pitch.

“I really don’t tell him about all the traps,” David says. On hole 8, he doesn’t tell him about the two TV news camera crews
either. Too much pressure. He tells him after he’s played the hole. Andy is chagrined because he hasn’t played it well, but
finally says: “Oh well, I don’t watch much TV myself.”

To judge distance, the golfers pace off their chip shots and putts. On one hole, David and Andy measure thirteen and a half
paces, but David tells him to hit “about a five and a half or a five and three fourths” because of the downhill slope. Andy
is on the green in 3, but 3-putts for a 6.

Andy blames David for misreading the green, just like any other golfer would blame a caddie or a helpful partner. He complains
that the slow play of the twosome ahead of them is holding them up, just like other golfers. And he carries on constant banter
like other golfers do: “Boy, Ron, you hit that one completely out of sight!”

At the end of 9 holes in the tournament, there is a cut. Andy makes it, but this time Ron does not. Surprisingly, neither
does Bob Andrews, who’s finished second here twice. Bob is president of the United States Blind Golf Association, which currently
sports about a hundred members who must be totally blind and prove that they’ve shot at least a legitimate 125 for 18 holes
on three occasions. (Were it not for the “blind” and “legitimate” parts, I could join.) He says there’s a whole worldwide
tour for blind golfers.

Figuring Bob is having an off day, and that he’s totally blind, I challenge him to play a hole.

“What’s your handicap?” I ask, “if you’ll pardon the expression.”

“Twenty-nine,” he says, informing me that one blind golfer plays to a 14 or 15 handicap. (A blind golfer once shot a 77, and
one of the golfers here has shot a hole-in-one!) He says some of his sighted friends won’t play golf with him because they
figure it’s a lose-lose situation. “It sure is fun to beat them when they do,” he says. Hmmm.

He tells me the tale of the legendary blind golfer Charley Boswell challenging Jack Nicklaus (some versions have it Arnold
Palmer or Bob Hope) to a round. Nicklaus accepts the challenge, and Boswell tells Nicklaus to meet him at the first tee—at
midnight.

Bob’s wife, Tina, is his coach. They have three sons. Tina doesn’t put his ball down for him, and doesn’t adjust his club.
“I’m not gonna spend my life bowing down before my husband,” she says. In soft, one-word directions, she has him move up or
back, away from or toward the ball, and tells him to open or close his stance and his club-face. “It’s very much a team sport,”
Bob says.

Later, Tina and Bob have me try to coach, something that proves most difficult. I have him facing this way and that, his club
practically upside down and backward. It’s like telling my cat to be a Seeing Eye dog.

But how
do
these golfers do it?

“You don’t really need to see the ball,” Bob explains. “The pros tell every golfer that they’re just learning a good mechanical
swing, and that the ball just gets in the way of that.” It’s muscle memory to the nth degree.

Bob tees off. His drive is another miracle to behold, quite long, although it does fade a bit to the right and lands a foot
inside the rough. “I pretty much know where it is,” Bob says, “by the sound and the feel.”

The truth is, I need Tina to help line
me
up properly, but she won’t. This is competition. So, my tee shot chops off short and to the left, landing at the ladies’
tee. Sure Bob’s blind, but I have some excuses, too: We’re playing with his clubs and I don’t have on golf shoes and I have
a lot of junk in my pants pockets and a slight hangover. Even?

Bob and Tina take the cart on up ahead and I decide that for my second shot, I really need to throw the ball about twenty
yards to get it out of there, and I go ahead and do that, and rather effectively if I do say so myself.

My second shot (the throw is not technically a shot) is an iron that is somewhere between a shank and a slice, but in any
event doesn’t reach his opening drive and so it’s Still My Turn. My fourth advancement of the ball is a hard kick from the
rough to the fairway, followed by my third shot, which carries past his first shot and—finally!—it’s his turn. He hits it
thin, frankly, but it rolls very, very far.