Charlie and the game of Golf

Once again, my number three child is competing in the Post-Standard Amateur Golf Tournament.  He survived the first two rounds of play to proceed to his home course of Bellevue Country Club tomorrow.

I’ve been following Charlie while he competes, walking 18 holes at Kanon Valley Country Club in Oneida and another 18 at Drumlins East in Dewitt.  I’m exhausted.  I’ve got blisters on my right toe and when I saw the 8:27 am tee time at Bellevue in the morning, I made a pre-emptive request to join in on the back nine.

Charlie and I have a running joke.  I tell him how fortunate he is to have inherited his good looks from the McCann side of the family even though he could pass for a twin for his dad.  Once, when I went to Steve’s house to pick up Charlie I saw Steve approaching the car and wondered what he wanted, only to see it was Charlie who was walking down the path.  That’s how much they look alike.

I also tell Charlie how proud I am that he’s such a disciplined player.  He works harder at the game than anyone I know.  I pat myself on the back for introducing Charlie to the sport and Charlie goes along with the ruse thanking me for all the equipment I bought and the lessons I arranged and the golf academy I discovered because I actually had nothing to do with it.  Steve is 100 percent responsible for Charlie and golf.  I thought it was a dull sport and kids should be waterskiing or something, and now look at him.

As usual,  my child is teaching me more than I am teaching him.  For years I watched Charlie suffer terribly during competitive play.   I wanted to take the pain away and bring him to something that feels good like a water slide at Disney because that’s what mommies do, but he would have none of it.  He was miserable on the course but elated in the car and it was that elation that brought him back for another day of suffering.

I wondered why the heck he plays a sport that does that to him.  He swears under his breath and sometimes above it for most of the course.  Sometimes I see him hit a shot into the woods and I wonder how on earth he’ll get out of this one.  Mostly I wonder why he would even want to.  I would crumble into a ball on the ground and cry.

Today Charlie hit one of those shots.  On the 12th tee at Drumlins East, he drove the ball into a forest and took a provisional “just in case” shot if the five of us; the three players, Charlie’s dad who was caddying, and I, could not locate the ball in the woods.  Well Charlie found it and it sat where no golf ball ever should sit unless you’re a person who combines golf and deer hunting in the same outing.

He stood at an awkward angle on the hill, squished between trees like he was identifying wild mushrooms and he looked up at the flag which sat at an impossible angle from his spot and swung.  ”Pop”.  ”Crunch!”. The ball made it as far as two feet before hitting a bush.  If he wasn’t going to throw himself onto the ground after that I thought I’d better.

Charlie hit it again and got onto the fairway,  the commuter highway for golf balls.  Charlie was back in the game, albeit at a terrible deficit.  With nerves of titanium I think he eventually sunk the ball into the hole at two strokes over par.  His final score for the day was 76, enough to propel him into a third round at Bellevue tomorrow.

As the mother who instinctively wanted to protect her son from failure and disappointment, I have come a long way.  I now know why Charlie loves this game  so much. It’s the satisfaction that comes from getting oneself out of trouble.

That’s what we all do, don’t we?  In the game of life we find ourselves in awful predicaments and wonder what do we do now?  Charlie, and all competitive golfers do this every time they step onto the first tee.  They get themselves in trouble and they work themselves out.  There is no honor in walking out of the woods and into the parking lot, or in crumbling into a ball and crying at the hopelessness of the work ahead.  They call up the grit and they push through the anger, disappointment, shame and fear to get the ball into that dumb hole.  We should all perform as well as a golfer stuck in the woods.

I’ll be rooting for baby Charlie at Bellevue tomorrow.  If you want to join us, just look for the middle aged woman with a camera in her hand and tired legs and a handsome young man who gets himself out of trouble again and again.

Tagged as: bellevue country club, golf, post standard golf tournament