John Haines
In business, it is taboo to use the word “assume,” or any term with ‘assume’ at its root. As surely as Shaq will be hacked, you will get whacked for “assuming anything” in the call and response of business-speak. To say, “I just assumed….” Well, that is the batting practice fastball so many managers at one time or another have smacked up the ass of many a frustrated worker bee. Must be something inspirational about spewing the classic triple negative…..Never assume nothin!
“So you just assumed that one of our visiting customers might want some coffee and so you just made a whole *&@#$ pot of coffee not knowing whether we needed to make a whole *&@#$ pot of coffee….are you *&@# kidding me? You think coffee is free? ”
Bad management in action. Happens all the time. Frustration is sure to follow.
In golf, the word never to be used, no matter how spot on, is “frustration,” or any derivative of it. You are supposedly allowed to be disappointed, or angry, or even verklempt, but ‘frustrated’ is to be avoided like the shanks – for nothing good can come from it. It is the admission of failure. Myriad mental Svengalis tell us this and so it must be true.
The truly frustrated golfer is like the guy in the throes of an ugly divorce. But for a couple of close friends and the odd gossip-monger, he is a pain to be around when he describes his ongoing crisis in curious, sometimes unbearable, detail.
Either guy will frequently displace his inner hell – often directing his rage at the strangest things. “I always hated those fake maple TV trays her uncle gave us,” the pathetic ex may lament. The frustrated golfer, equally pathetic, might suddenly start barking at ball washers, or actually come to feel he is being mocked by, say, the barn to the left of the 6th hole at The Bog.
Well, you needn’t assume anything about this: I am Frustrated – capital F. And you may assume - unequivocally - it’s because of my golf game. Frustrated! Oh F’ing A I am. It is making me crazy.
The state amateur just concluded at my home course; the big, the beautiful, The Bog. At over 7,000 yards with strong, fluctuating westerlies and harvest-ready rough, this years Am was a demanding tee to green test - not just another putting contest at the end of too many shots with short irons.
I had been waiting for The Am at The Bog like a loyal dog.
I bogeyed my first hole, The Bog’s 10th. Then played well and turned at 1 under par. What, me worry? I was actually hitting fairways; all my practice apparently smoothing out my biggest flaw (read: ‘hook’, or ‘way rights’ from ‘fear of hook’). I had assumed my wayward tee balls had been relegated to the rotting carnage I had left under flies and other bugs at my past few tournaments. Assumed? You clueless practice range hero - never assume nothin’!
After a bad bogey from the middle of the fairway on the 2nd hole, my 11th, a “what’r ya’ gonna do” bogey on the 12th, and a three putt on the 13th - it happened.
A loud foul to deep left. That shot - combined with the knowledge of having gotten away with a loud foul earlier when my ball skirted, too perfectly to be anything but luck, around the corner on the par 5 17th, my 8th - confirmed my worst fear: I had once again, contracted a case of the dreaded NIWIGs. (Pronounced knee-wigs) NIWIGs are unique particles of strangely united cluelessness- sometimes referred to as ‘brain confetti’. Together they form a debilitating type of bewilderment called, ‘No Idea Where It’s Going.’ I thought the aforementioned practice had put my NIWIG’s in full retreat. Instead, they had merely regrouped in order to plot a surprise attack at the worst time- The State Am.
BAM! The rickety barn left of the 6th fairway was under siege…my double crossed 3 metal fired a shot that tried to take it down once and for all. That’s right - the old barn on The Ol’ Barn Hole at The Bog, the Saukville hotel for hobos, field house for field mice; once again the sucker swallowed whole, my overly excited Titleist. It seemed openly receptive to, and maybe even thrilled by, the flying whiteness I had sent hurtling into the back of its throat. I don’t know why they leave the barn door open on that damn hole. Takes away the ricochet.
Maybe it’s not a barn door at all but rather a big hole where a door used to be. As many times as I’ve shelled the thing over the years you’d think I might remember. Can’t. A thought: Maybe the insidious NIWIG’s are the cause of my here-and-gone course management as well the result of having so many tee shots gone wild in a self-sustaining cycle of turmoil.
Hmmm…bad management in action? Happens all the time. Frustration is sure to follow. Anyway - double bogey.
I must tell you, I was a bit shook My 3 metal turning on me? Yep. Right to left. Hard. I limped in with 77 and I felt sick about it. Tomorrow would be better. Ham sandwiches would take flight against the Saukville sky before I would score worse on my home course.
Well, grab ‘em while they’re hot and pass the mustard because I was anything but hot and my game certainly didn’t pass muster that second day. Even par through 4 holes, followed by back to back three jacks, and then, still another loud foul to deep left, this time on the 7th hole - the hole after The Barn Hole. Nonetheless, the haunted ol’ ‘bonfire-in-waiting’ was on my left and no doubt sending out magnetic waves from its corner cobwebs, pulling still another ball off my 3 metal left. It found the left trash and I hadn’t much mettle left.
A beautiful thing happened then. Just before unleashing this loud foul to the far left of 7, I noticed three carts with the orange pennants emblematic of official importance doing some kind of Shriner weave near the fairway on the right side some 300 plus yards away from the tee. I was the last to hit in my group and after I had hit, one cart turned back towards the clubhouse but the other two flew into action, eating up the fairway slopes and moguls on the way to my ball. The two carts arrived at the left trash that descends into the soggy bog land that protects the blind side of the laughing barn a moment before I did.
Both officials athletically dismounted their respective carts like marines jumping from jeeps to investigate something gone terribly wrong. No SWAT rolls or anything, just two intrepid men invested in helping a frustrated golfer with a bad case of NIWIGS and a fixation on busting up the smug mug on a ball baiting barn.
As I got closer, I saw that one fellow was the esteemed Dr. Thomas Schmidt, Executive Director of the Wisconsin State Golf Association. The other gentleman, all silver haired and senatorial looking was none other than Nic Wahl, President of the WSGA. Two men of true commitment to golf, I thought they might just break out some mountain rope and repel further down a hillside of thorny brush left of seven in search of my ball - which by then had probably already begun a covert mission to circle back undetected to the Mother Barn.
But they were there to help the momentarily hapless Hainer. Management in action. I was too crabby at the moment to care, but later I took some time to reflect..
I thought, wow. Here I was, in the State Amateur, at The Bog, a prestigious Arnold Palmer designed 5 star course and I’ve got perhaps the two most important officers in Wisconsin amateur golf on a fruitless Easter egg hunt - all for my benefit. It was like dining at Mortons and having the head chef and general manager come to my table to wipe up the spilled can of Colt 45 Malt Liquor I had smuggled in. I assumed the guy in the third cart must have been Terry Wakefield, owner of The Bog.- I figured he probably went back to the clubhouse to get me an extra sleeve of Titleists, maybe some chilled fruit…but, maybe not. I know…..Never assume nothing!
I hit a few good shots right after that but no doubt this was only to make the total collapse on the back nine even more painful. And, amazingly, every errant tee shot on the back was working hard in the direction of the damn barn, no matter how far away it was on whatever hole. .
I will not share anything further about my State Am since it just dawned on me as I write this that one of the ugliest symptoms of golf oriented frustration (GOF) is a dreadful need to give ridiculously uninteresting hole by hole accounts on how ones misery came to be.
It is, as I mentioned earlier, a natural human reflex to dump the details of personal devastation upon all remaining happy people. In effect however, it brings to life the truest bromide in golf, “half the people don’t care how you did, the other half wish you did worse.”
And so this wigged-out, frustrated golfer with an irrational fear of laughing barns has indeed caught himself succumbing to frustration and the ugly practice of detail sharing. And, right now, even as I tap these keys, I rise above it through these very words before your very eyes, and, more importantly, the very words I will not put before your now, quite likely, weary eyes. It is my big move toward the essence of nothingness, toward the freedom at point zero as well as the intense psychotherapy of meaningful silence. All of it creating a fresh, new canvas for me.
I grow, from pain, through golf, with joy.
But, as a postscript, the true cause of the twin barrel attack of loud fouls and NIWIGS that fouled up my State Amateur has now been isolated. It’s in my grip, or more accurately, my habitual re-grip. I won’t get into it, but this is the problem, and to solve the problem one has to admit they have a problem, and then define what the problem is. So….now it’s out there - and I’m glad to have it all back in my hands.
I have been to the depths of golf oriented frustration and have returned stronger where the scars remain. I am seeing the upside of most everything again. Missing fairways enhanced my creativity in recovery shots. Missing greens improved my short game. Missing putts justified the purchase of a pretty and more obedient putter that feels so damn good. (Perhaps a lesson there for the ‘throes of divorce’ guy.)
And, the terrible hook on 7th hole in the 2nd round of the 2004 State Am at The Bog led to something else. It demonstrated some unmitigated outreach from two of our state golf association’s highest officers – not to mention their unconscious and selfless instinct to keep their bodies between me and that damn barn. Kind of gets me choked up thinking about what could’ve happened considering my state of mind had they not.
Finally, maybe it’s time I stop using the craggy ol’ barn at The Bog as some mystical personification of my personal failings in getting off the tee during the State Am this year. It’s quite possible the ol’ barn is just an innocent bystander in all of this. A marginal landmark happy enough to be noticed from time to time as players from everywhere shuffle by. I really think I’ve got a grip on these things now.
Still, one would have to admit, some barns look like they have a face, don’t they? I would assume everyone thinks that.