OUR
REGULAR GAME NO. 11
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One of the really great things about golf is that
it’s played at a pace that allows players to socialize with one another.
The only other game that approaches this is baseball, where you can
see players holding conversations with one another, either between
catchers and batters or first basemen and runners.
But in baseball the socializing is fleeting at best, because
batters and runners are gone the instant the ball is put in play.
In golf, we don’t run off from our playing companions after we
play a shot. Instead, we stay with them for the entire round, which
usually lasts around four hours. That
leaves a lot of time to talk.
As a result, golf requires more from its players in terms of
quality banter, and it’s important that each of us learns how to talk
the talk.
Here are a few tips on how to improve your golf banter.
First, avoid cliches as much as possible.
Anybody can say “trees are 90% air” when your ball skips right
through a huge oak without so much as touching a leaf.
And anybody can yell “sit, Ubu” or “grow teeth” to a ball
that’s flying past its target. That
won’t win you any real style points with your fellow competitors.
So, if you really want to stand out, you’ve got to be a little
more original than that.
Second, it’s important to make fun of yourself as much as anyone
else. In fact, laughing
at someone else’s ball flying out of bounds when the eighteen hole
presses are on might get you a trip to the emergency room.
Imagine having a doctor ask you embarrassing questions about how
you came to wear your friend’s five-iron in such a private place.
To help you better get the idea, let me walk you through a few
examples.
The next time your ball ignores your screams as it flies out of
bounds, tell your friends that you’re switching to another brand of ball
— one with ears, so it can hear you next time.
If you have a partner having a bad day on the greens and he asks
you to help him read a putt, offer the same tip Lee Trevino gave one of
his pro-am partners: Tell him to just try to keep it low.
If you want to console a friend who’s playing a bad round, you
might remind him of what Jimmy Demaret said, which is that golf and sex
are about the only things you can enjoy without being good at it.
As most of you know, the Rules of Golf allow ten seconds for a putt
hanging on the lip to drop into the hole.
The next time you hit a particularly bad putt that ends up five
feet or so away, hold up your hands and say to the group, “Don’t move.
Let’s wait ten seconds to see if it falls.”
Of course, none of this is as good as the line laid on me by my
ninth grade basketball coach after he yanked me from a game when I threw
the ball away. As he sat me
on the bench, he asked what I was doing. I tried to explain by saying, “Coach, I thought . . . .”
He quickly cut me off and said, “Don’t think, son, you ain’t
built for it.”
Now that’s a good line.
Until next time, this is Mike Veron for our Regular Game.
About the Author
J. Michael Veron is the acclaimed author of The
Greatest Player Who Never Lived and The
Greatest Course That Never Was. His third novel, tentatively titled
The Caddie, is scheduled for release in the spring of 2002.
Mike's work has earned him the title of "master
of fiction" from USA Today, and Travel and Leisure Golf Magazine
has called him "The
John Grisham of Golf." In addition, the New York Times hailed The
Greatest Player as "Golf's
Literary Rookie of the Year," and the Seattle Times ranked The
Greatest Player as second on its all-time list of "Five Wonderful
Golf Books." At one time,
The Greatest Player and The
Greatest Course were the first and third best-selling sports fiction
in the country.
Please contact us
for more information on Mike and his work.
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