Golf.

I didn’t start to play the game of golf until I was nearly 40 and living in Japan. Colleagues at Camp Zama introduced me to the game at the Zama Golf Course, and during the next three years I played various courses on military bases throughout Japan. I never took lessons, relying on the grip it and rip it style of the committed duffer. Mark Twain once famously said that golf, “Spoils a good walk”. I can assure you that I spoiled many good walks in my time in Japan.

On work days we would go out at sunrise and walk the empty, closed course, pulling our little bag carriers behind us. We would practicing our shots in first light without weekend pressure. The greens would be covered with early morning dew, and our putts would spawn rooster tails as they rolled along with the muted hiss of water droplets in their wake. Funny, the things you remember, the things you forget.

Over the next few years I played courses in Singapore and Malaysia, down in the equatorial heat. Once in Malaysia I hit a perfect drive right down the middle but when I walked to where the ball should be, it was not to be found. Apparently a large monitor lizard ate it and ran away.

Another time I was lining up a shot and realized I was standing in a fire-ant nest. Time to flee on foot whilst frantically batting my pants legs.

The rules of golf harken back to an earlier era, where, while your immediate opponent was another person, you are really playing against the course itself. Golf requires that you remain attentive at all times and remember all the details of the game in progress. I was very poor at this part of the game, the etiquette as it is called.

I knew these rules yet would become easily distracted by clouds, trees, squirrels, birds, those pesky monitor lizards and fire ants. Once, while playing in a foursome I spotted a nice ball marker on the ground and picked it up only to be told that the marker was actually marking the ball location of one of my playing partners. Duh. I sensed a not insignificant rolling of eyes. I had a habit of committing these silly breaches of golf etiquette, to the point where my playing partners would collectively release a critical mass of eye-rolling (Ew).

These days my lower back precludes me from playing golf, but I often have very detailed dreams of playing. In these dreams the course is a mashup of various courses I played and I can even picture a large and ornate clubhouse. I remember hitting shots, some bad some good, but then I am always losing my golf bag and clubs somewhere out on the course. I must walk back to find my clubs whilst the other members of the foursome continue on. I wander aimlessly amongst the greens and fairways, being able (for the first time) to enjoy my walk.