While having coffee before going to watch Bob's grandson represent his school in a team golf tourney, I received the following text from a mutual friend of ours,a certain Yeti Waters from Parts Unhinged:

“Yesterday I went down a street that the school has closed off [educators as law officers?] to drop [my Son] off. Some teacher was directing traffic and the bitch got all mad, tried to get in front of my car. I swerved, gave her a dirty look, and then dropped [my Son] off 100 feet past her. I looked in the rear view mirror and she ran up to him and was pointing at my car and gesticulating wildly to him. I picked him up from the 7-11 after school and asked what she said to him. He said she told him, 'Your Dad can't be driving down this street, the school [acting as law enforcement agency] has it closed off, its unsafe, etc.'”

“I asked him what he said to her. He told her, 'These uber drivers now days are crazy...'

“He's a good kid.”

…

Yesterday, for the second time in my life, I followed a golf game. Bob's grandson, rejected the football coach and decided to play golf. This is in Football-Religion Central. But football has been losing its luster among rural Americans these past few years. The football coach is a bitch who calls the players names and whined to the principal to have Bob's grandson expelled for talking back to him when the coach called him a “loser” and a “pretty boy” for playing golf. I complimented him for cussing the coach out, knowing that the women in the family had probably chided him.

Now, as much as I hated football coaches in Middle and High School, despite liking the violence of the game, I have learned to respect the fact that my Uncle Fred made his career in business based on football contacts from playing and coaching in High School and University.

I also think that golf is a travesty, wasting good land, water, poisoning the water with pesticides. Bob notes its “A waste of a good rifle range.”

But, compared to being an unpaid training partner for the unpaid training partners that will enable negro criminals to become iconic American Celebrity Gods, golf has value. Golf is what rich men do, playing golf could get one a job on a golf course and help get the shoulder-to-shoulder contact with businessmen that a member of the most hated race in human history could use when looking for employment in the Gods and Slaves Mud World to come.

Social Study

The first game was conducted over 18 holes at a golf course serving two of the richest zip-codes in Utah, Heber City's Soldier Hollow, where it costs $40k a year to play golf, but local high schools are allowed to have weekday tourneys.

The older rich guys were cool. Their women were polite.

The young rich guys were prancing sissies in masks without women.

The beautiful girl working the concession counter was a bitch on wheels, literally snarling at any man who was not overtly upscale.

The second game was played in tiny 1,000 feet below in the desert basin, in Morgan, Utah, a working town with a butcher shop where Browning firearms were first made. The carts were not as nice. Prozaic brush piles littered the course. Regular retired middle class folk had campers parked in an RV section. The old cowboys were gentlemen and the employees were smiling. Fundraisers for local events were posted and one of the urinals was out of order. A tombstone for a beloved father had been placed beneath a black willow tree. The course was less sculpted and generic than Soldier Hollow, and was scattered along the banks of the Weber River with every tree indigenous to the region,gracing the former sheep pasture, with some sage-brush fence retained.

Golf

This struck me of how a Scottish Highlander would have remade polo to spend a pleasant afternoon while not soldiering for Queen and Country. Like shooting pool, eye-hand coordination is balanced with a crucial need to relax under pressure. Gross motor and fine motor skills are used in alternation, spaced by mid-distance walks hauling gear. Like in shooting with arrow or bullet, the wind must be understood and accounted for.

Golf is a study in Arуan nomadism in microcosm, having a cyclic cadence to it, and placing one outside under the open sky for a good four hours. Compared to playing video games it seems ideal for young men.

The best thing about golf is that it is conducted on an honor system without officials. The two pairs of Morgan and South Summit golfers helped and supported each other in learning the game, searched for balls, spotted the often distant and tiny target and advised—no one wanting to win on another's misfortune as in ball sports, but seeking to up their game.

The game is scored according to bird signs, Birdie, Eagle, Albatrose, and bogie, which I suppose is a term for misfortune. I do not understand the scoring but noted that the young men were helping each other play against the land itself. It reminds me of something with its roots in falconry and a hunter's reading of terrain and judgment of distance. Each player scores his own card and submits it to his opponent who signs it. The young men quietly cheer and groan for each others' accomplishments and failures.

The coaches show up occasionally to check on their players. First, they check on the youth playing on the other team and even offer advice! This is unknown in American team sports. This is something I have only noted, and in spots, with individual fight sports. The coaching is not like the shouted dogmas of football, soccer or basketball, but a combination of baseball and boxing mentorship.

I oddly, find myself liking golf. Walking with the young men rather than riding in the cart until the noon desert sun drove me into the shade, was particularly pleasing. Rather than shouting, cursing and cheering from the sidelines, parents, in ones and twos in golf carts, sit in silent observation and the occasional positive comment after a shot is the norm. One father actively assist all the players with finding their errant balls. The wind gushing down the canyon mouth afflicts the players like storms vex a sailor at see.

The two more athletic youths, the ones who look like they were designed for boxing with T-d out shoulders, had more trouble relaxing than the two taller and lanky young men, making hitting this ball with the club very similar to combat striking sports I have coached, in the need for relaxation under pressure in order to progress.

Putting the ball, like in miniature golf, rather than driving it a long distance, seems to be the skill that is hard to obtain. A remarkable putt will always get the compliment of a rival coach.

Bob's grandson finally found a sport that fit his contemplative mind's eye.

Perhaps, one day, he will play a game of golf with one of those elites who pay $40k a year to keep his father at bay, and perhaps find a job or a well-positioned advocate. He enters a world where friends in mighty places will be required to thrive.

To me, as I stood by him by a ball that had gone off course, the young fellow who I've known for five years now, said, “Thanks, James, for coming out. I appreciate the support.”

Then, as his mid-range swing got him to the “green” that diabolically manicured lawn about the flag, usually placed like some hill fort in the middle of a medieval landscape, he said, “I'll take it,” indicating that his pursuit of this new game has already taught him about how Fate intercedes in our pursuit of excellence and our progress over the course of our lives.