The title of this column contains the tagline CBS uses when promoting the Masters, the PGA Major Championship Tournament that occurs this weekend in Augusta, GA at Augusta National. I love that tagline. It rings so true for me. The Masters is my favorite golf tournament of the year and -- along with baseball's Opening Day -- announces the arrival of spring and all the glorious weather that comes with it for me. It's a tradition I definitely look forward to every year.
The tagline also always gets me thinking about how golf in itself is a tradition unlike any other for me in a different sort of way. I'm consistently pretty mediocre at golf, and after a few years of trying to take this sport seriously and get good, I'm pretty much only a few steps ahead of where I was a not long ago. Golf is the most frustrating sport in my opinion, and yet can also be so satisfying.
First, let me give a quick history for golf and me: I picked up golf at about 12 or 13, and anything I ever learned pretty much came from my dad and my older brother. I didn't bother with lessons because I just wanted to get out there on the course and cart path with my family. So, it took me a while to put up any respectable scores, but by age 16 or so I could consistently score in the 95-100 range. However, it wasn't until I started working at a local country club the past two summers -- cleaning golf bags and carts and picking the range and such -- that I began to take the sport seriously.
So I got a few lessons from the pros in the pro shop, and played every Monday when employees could play the course. I slowly began to show improvement. It all peaked this past summer after the Fourth of July when I shot 85, but the closest I've gotten to that score is the occasional 89 or so that I put up last August.
So back to CBS's tagline -- a tradition unlike any other; the whole golf season takes on a tradition of its own for me. The first few outings of the year, I'll play some of my best golf of the year because I've forgotten all the bad habits I developed over the previous year. Everything becomes natural and fluid and I can hit some solid shots that actually resemble what real golfers do. However, as the season goes on, and we enter into the early summer months, said bad habits will return, and my scores will start to rise. From there, I might start to develop a bit of a bad habit rhythm where I can start to control the habits, and get my scores back down in the high 80s, low 90s. Then, of course, I'll close out the summer usually on a mediocre note, as I overplay and over-think each shot.
It happens every year. Golf season is a roller coaster of frustration and immense satisfaction. You can strike a solid ball, get on the green in regulation and make a couple of solid putts for par and start to feel like a real golfer. You might even have a particularly good hole and throw in a birdie every now and again. But as much glory as the golf gods will give you with those good shots, they will most definitely take it all away with a string of double bogeys. Anyone who plays golf knows this: it's so damn hard to play consistently good golf for all 18 holes.
And that's one of the main reasons I watch the Masters and all the other PGA Majors each year. To borrow from the PGA's advertisements: these guys are good. People always complain that golf is too slow and boring to watch on TV, but any weekend hacker can appreciate the amount of skill it takes to drive the ball consistently over 280 yards or get out of four-inch deep rough to score a birdie. Add that skill with the jaw-dropping beauty of a course like Augusta National, and the Masters becomes an awesome event to watch. Last year's dramatic victory by Tiger Woods with his "is it going to fall or not" chip on 16 is enough evidence alone to support that claim.
So when spring and warm weather came back to Charlottesville this past weekend, I hit the course to start my golf season anew with all the optimism of spring surrounding me. Walking nine holes with some friends, I was even able to make a few pars and feel like a solid golfer. Of course, I know what awaits me in the summer: immense frustration and immense satisfaction -- and that's why golf is truly a tradition unlike any other.
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