Hope Springs Eternal on the Hainer

Spring sprang over a month ago. Seriously, look at the calendar, it’s a lunar fact. But the cold seems to contradict the calendar longer each year. And it’s showing my age. I’ll get to that later.

Hope may spring eternal, but the concept is primarily pushed in spring. No one loads up with hope, and its hallucinogenic derivative, expectations, like the competitive golfer. Winter is a backspace bar for all the bad crap that’s gone down swinging the season before. We begin again; fresh start, clean slate, everybody back to zero. As my best dead buddy Chazzy would often say, “Now we go.” The blights of the previous season are healed over and stronger where the scars remain. Last year's highlights get exaggerated into stepping-stones to that so-called ‘next level’. It’s hard not to get all jazzed, geeked and happy go jacky for the coming season, even if it is borderline delusional.

Nonetheless, go with the flow. This will be the year.

I go through it every winter, the process of choosing the best approach, all for the same purpose. Greatness. If not greatness, then, well – to suck much less. Tried it all. Dream more, dream less, talk about it or don’t, bring on the bravado or heap on the humility, always believe, never say never, get serious, less serious, think better, think less, show it, hide it, share it and on and on until something sticks, some mind-set de jour. Usually after a hard workout, maybe some practice putting in the basement and a few daydreaming sessions in-between, an overriding sense emerges that all things are possible in your “golf-life.” - specifically, the possibility that you’ll win some state or local golf tournament this year if you stay healthy. You can feel it in your bones.

Sure you can.

This year spring sprung a surprise on me; old story - an injury - or, in my case, injuries. When I was younger, aches and pains used to go away simply by rubbing dirt on them or by lying on the couch and administering salty carbohydrates, maybe some ballgame therapy if necessary. Now these aches and pains, are making themselves downright comfortable with making my body uncomfortable. These injuries are flat wearing out their welcome -and my shoulder, and my elbow, my neck, finger, and, say it ain’t so, they’re sapping my spring reservoir of eternal optimism.

My right elbow is barking like a hyper shiatsu or whatever those loud little dogs are called. “Tennis elbow,” says the doc. And, my left shoulder is moaning like some promiscuous bovine in heat. “Damaged rotator cuff,” comes the word. I’m not ready to talk publicly about my finger injury.

I’m doping up on anti-inflamatories before I play and sprinting to my hot tub after. I’ve got Blue Emu salve and five different elbow contraptions that succeed only in making my fingers cold. I’d bathe in Hyena saliva if it would shut the traps of the yippy dog and the horny cow – anything to help me get my club through impact.

“Age.” People constantly say, “it’s age settin’ in, Johnny,” as if it’s the single most appropriate thing they have ever said in their life; like it’s the one thing in the world they know for sure. People’s eyes will absolutely twinkle when they say it. “You’re just getting old my friend.” Pathetic.

Yep, I know, plenty have it worse than me. I’m only 46 years old and I’ve seen the old timers warm up on the range. They’re like statues coming to life, the club moving slowly at first, like a second hand back to the hip-high, Readers Digest version of parallel. Eventually, as they get loose and their dope kicks in, the good ones begin to look like gray haired baton twirlers on a mission to get your money. Seven wood, stony – “gonna press?”

For years I’d heard competitive seniors talk about how the weather affects them. To hear them say it, the cold owns them. Everything hurts they’d say. I’m beginning to understand this better than I ever wanted to. The venerable, 70 something Hall of Famer Archie Dadian has probably lost count of his injuries and replacement surgeries; both how many he’s actually had and how many he’s says he’s had. Still, he ambles to the tee with his ‘one tough hombre limp’, mumbles something about his latest hip/knuckle/torso replacement, and sears one down the middle using artificial parts the USGA has yet to rule on.. He probably won’t play until June.

I don’t think age, however, has all that much to do with my injuries this spring. I think it’s…..Divine payback.

You see, several years ago, I made an insensitive crack to some friends I had invited over to watch the final round of The Masters. There’s nothing like watching The Masters, a cherished rite of spring - and the manifestation of the entire golf community’s annual rebirth. The touching highlights of the ceremonial opening tee shots from Sam Snead, Byron Nelson and Gene Sarazen were being shown. We sat there in reverential silence observing these great legends of the game, their range of motion reduced to that of the recliner I was plopped in. The average age was maybe eighty among these three dignified gentlemen. Hushed and mesmerized, we took it in like a sacrament.

Inexcusably, I broke the silence. “I wonder if maybe they, you know, let out just a little pee at impact.”

Joe’s beer shot through his nostrils like twin water cannons. It is a story that gets told among friends every spring now, and I’m not proud. And God is getting back at me good.

Since that comment several springs ago, the aches and pains have escalated. This year, even simple hygienic acts have asked much of me as a man. Not that shampooing my hair is a story in courage, but reaching to shut off the alarm clock at 5:45 am is. And I find myself wondering just how expensive a bidet might be. Pathetic.

Of course I’ll keep playing, and complaining, though I try to be stoic among people who I don’t know. The following story tells it all, or at least how it’s gonna be I suppose.

A couple of weeks ago I played a nine hole match with friends in cold, wind and then rain. It was quite late in the afternoon when we started and we had all parked pretty far from the clubhouse.

As we finished, the rain intensified. The four of us were completely soaked. We went to our cars to stash our clubs and change outer-wear, having agreed to meet in the clubhouse right after to settle the bets. Parking had become available close to the clubhouse since almost everyone with common sense had left. The other three fellas dried off a bit and finagled their cars up close to the clubhouse so not to get any wetter.

From inside my solitary and motionless Taurus, I sized up the situation. The clubhouse was a good gap wedge away. The sound of the rain pounded loudly against my car and competed with my barking psycho shiatsu elbow and my moaning sexually addicted Holstein shoulder. Each arm throbbed in its own special way.

I evaluated how many twists and turns of the steering wheel were involved in moving closer to the clubhouse. Lightning and thunder had since joined the party along with the bitch-slapping wind and gushing rain. Surreal dog and cow noises came at me as if through stacked Marshall Amps turned up to10. Wind, rain, throbs and thunder - and bleating animals - I was beyond cursing.

So I just got out of the car and walked with a “one tough hombre limp” to the clubhouse, my eyes to the sky asking, “why?” But I knew why. The ‘pee’ comment. I was getting peed on all over again, my deserved penance. I didn’t even consider running. My waiting friends stood under the clubhouse awning and looked at me like I was a retarded leper alien. A retarded leper alien that owed them money. Pathetic indeed.

Yeah baby, this is the year.