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001732 Visit since
| Learning
the game | by Peter Gray
September
30, 2002. |  Players
will tell you that good manners and fair play are at the very essence of the game
of golf. You may have noticed that Tiger Woods punctiliously doffs his cap before
shaking hands with the guy he has just taken for a million dollar payday. A pleasing
contrast with the buttock-slapping that baseball players delight in using indiscriminately
at every opportunity. Scratching one's private parts is also thought to be inappropriate
while a fellow golfer is trying to concentrate on his game.
Before
taking up the game, it is therefore wise to prepare yourself by obtaining the
official Rules of Golf as laid out by the United States Golf Association and the
Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, Scotland. It only runs to one hundred
and thirty two pages, excluding the index. Be warned that it starts out with a
section called 'Understanding the Words." This contains some truly Clintonian
passages. So do not spend too much time trying to figure things like this out:
"A ball = you may substitute your ball. The ball = you may not substitute
your ball." Maybe White House lawyers learn how to define their clients'
position by first studying the Rules of Golf. Flicking
through the pages of the rule-book breeds a suspicion that the people responsible
for maintaining order on the golf course are not about to let something as ephemeral
as "etiquette" take care of things on its own. In fact you are strongly
urged to tote the rule-book along with you at all times.  For
example, you may need to consult Rule 6-5 that states: "An amateur golfer
of skill or reputation must not accept membership or privileges in a club or course
without full payment for the class of membership involved." Note the clever
way they catch people like me by separating "skill" from mere "reputation."
Darn it, now I dare not take advantage of the low season deals in case my "reputation"
goes belly-up, leaving me entirely naked - without skill nor reputation.
I
have discovered that experienced golfers are not above using "etiquette"
as a form of intimidation. Recognizing that the beginner golfer is already in
a state of near panic, it is easy to turn the screws up a notch by drawing attention
to unintended breaches of the house rules. Let me show you how three such strikes
are possible on just one hole. We start on the first tee.
An experienced golfer is leading off. I am second in line and trying to stand
in a patch of shade while waiting for my turn. "Peter, it is not good form
to stand directly behind me while I am preparing to hit my drive." I bolt
nervously to the side and take a candy out of my pocket to steady my nerves. As
the first player draws his club back, the candy wrapper in my hand makes a faint
rustling sound. The world suddenly freezes around me. The experienced golfer sighs
dramatically. "I'll just play that again," he says with a baleful look
in my direction. Half way down the fairway, I have landed
in a deep bunker on the right. The experienced player is way over on the extreme
left, about forty yards away. I make a slashing swipe in the sand and actually
succeed in exiting the trap and rolling my ball fifty yards towards the hole.
I am ecstatic to have pulled this off. "Peter, it was not your turn to play.
You were clearly three feet further from the hole than I." Ecstasy replaced
by hangdog embarrassment.  Finally,
we both get our balls on the green. I feel confident that I am going to putt well
this morning and I stride towards my ball with visions of calmly sinking a twenty-foot
putt. "Peter, one must not step on the line of another player's ball."
Now, from what I can see, the green has been recently spread with a mixture of
sand and fertilizer and then spiked with a two-ton roller. My shoes have soft
spikes that would not dent the grass if I stamped on it with all my might. But
"etiquette" must always prevail and I have failed to measure up once
again. Suitably mortified, I hit my ball twenty feet past the hole, then end up
three feet short of it and have to take a third shot to finish.
My
best advice to the novice is to doff your cap and shake hands with everyone after
every hole. That way, however many times you fail to live up to the code, people
will recognize you are doing your best to be a good sport. Archives
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