One of my playing partners was telling a story and, like a lot of stories told by storytellers of a certain age and gender, he happened to be the hero of his story.
I remember that much. But if I’m being honest, that’s about all of the plot from his story that I can remember except, of course, for the closing line.
His story went something like this:
“Blah, blah, blah. Then I did something excellent! Ha! Blah, blah, bl…”
Then he made a jerking motion with his thumb and forefinger while adding:
“… and that’s how I found out I had prostate cancer.”
I paused. The day was hot and dry and I remember sneezing a lot. And the guy pushing his golf cart next to mine as we walked to our second shots on No. 11 on the Los Lagos course at Costa Mesa Country Club (it’s a short, dog-leg left, par 4) had just said something that warranted a response suggesting I’d been listening. Which I hadn’t. So I stalled.
“Woah, wait, what?”
“Prostate cancer,” he repeated, in a way you might explain something you didn’t quite understand to a 7-year-old who probably did.
“Malignant cells growing inside an important gland.”
OK, some of that last bit might be slightly off. While I think I remember him saying “malignant cells,” it’s possible I’m filling in blanks. The conversation took place eight years ago, give or take, on a weekday afternoon when my wife had been led to believe (by me) that I was working. Some details are fuzzy.
But the gist of it is true, particularly the part about cancer and the look on his face that suggested I shouldn’t ask about his prognosis.
And it is revelatory in an important way: Golf is intimate.
Not playing around
I’ve played golf for about 15 years. As a player, I’m neither bad nor good, though as I write that I realize there probably is no “good” when it comes to golf; just varying degrees of horrible. So, in that sense, I’m less horrible than some golfers, particularly for my age, but somewhat more horrible than golfers who qualify as serious and a lot more than golfers who qualify as competitive.
I do know that I’m addicted to golf. And, like other addictions, that doesn’t mean I always love it. In fact, at times, when I’m playing far below what I believe my skill level to be (ponder the self-delusion of those words), I almost hate golf.
But I cannot resist golf. And a big reason for that, I think, is intimacy.
The intimacy in golf is more about unity of purpose than anything physical or even emotional. And this unity of purpose — or, let’s be honest, unity of frustration, which can be far more unifying than purpose — becomes intimacy when mixed with one very powerful second ingredient: Strangers.
Golf is one of the few things in modern life that requires you to spend three to six hours in an open space with people you’ve never met, have no affinity with (other than the game), and no need to impress or satisfy, instruct or control.
Golf, on the public courses where I play, is almost always a four-person party. So, even if I’m teeing off with one of my regular playing partners, we’ll wind up with another twosome or two other singles who are almost always unknown to us prior to tee time. Or if I’m walking onto a course by myself (golf-wise, I’m a walker unless the course mandates the use of a cart) it’s me and one to three other singles, or me and a threesome, or…
Well, you get the idea; a stupid number of variations add up to a single fact: A round of golf is an instant and short-lived small town, a 10th-grade class, a stuck elevator.
And the intimacy of playing golf with these strangers-turned-instant-allies is enhanced by the fact that the game — equal parts skill and weakness, Kabuki-level courteous, self-governed — can be revelatory about who you are as a player and, sure, as a person.
The rules
Over the years, I’ve played golf with roughly 1,200 strangers. I can’t speak for how any of them felt about me, but I can recall hating or strongly disliking only two.
One was a man from San Diego who, after asking what I did for a living and learning I’m in the news business, spent several hours talking about his hatred of news people. It’s a feeling I can’t say I haven’t shared, at times, but he was trite and repetitive, and he eventually felt license to literally scream at me. If I knew his name I would print it now.
Another was a man who insisted on pushing cell phone pictures of lingerie models into our faces. For about five hours.
The other 1,198 were varying degrees of nice, funny, quiet, non-violent, inebriated or clever. Or they spoke no English.
Also, they — we, actually — all followed a few spoken and unspoken rules:
We exchanged first names before the first tee, usually while shaking hands and smiling. We then forgot each other’s names almost instantly. We were not bothered by this.
We either tried to play fast enough not to bum out the people behind us or, short of that, we offered excuses to each other about why it was OK for us to be plodding. We did this even as we openly cursed and at times threatened any slow players in front of us.
We talked zero politics. There are people I will cancel out in the voting booth — as long as there are voting booths that matter — who’ve been pretty cool on a golf course. Also, while golf is a game with a long history of racism and misogyny and economic elitism, many golfers in 2024 don’t share that history. Or are women. Or both.
We offered no instruction to each other about how to reduce our horribleness at golf. Unless asked, in which case we had the good sense to still not offer any instruction.
We read the big, irrigated green room and, when appropriate, we shut the heck up.
Silence rules
Speaking is not required on a golf course. In fact, silence (or lack of a common language) can boost golf intimacy.
I once played with a guy, early 30s, who needed only a few words to explain something life-changing.
We were on a pretty easy course in Irvine and, on the first hole, he drilled his tee shot into a tree only 50-ish yards down the fairway. His next shot disappeared through some netting into a nearby driving range. After he dropped a new ball, he hit into a bunker. Then he three-putted.
On hole No. 2 — a short par 3 — he cooked his tee shot about 50 yards past the green.
Then he laughed.
Turned out he’d just used a six-iron, not a nine, meaning the ball had gone about as far as it was supposed to. He wound up following what I think had been a quadruple bogey on hole No. 1 with a double-bogey on hole No. 2.
More ‘How to Do Anything’
This story is part of a collection of stories printed in August 2024.
‘Life at the Dumpling’: How a family newsletter became a guidebook on good living
Learn how to dig for vinyl and rediscover the joy of real records
Here’s how to have the most enjoyable experience at the Hollywood Bowl
10 hacks for making guests think you’re the perfect hostess
9 tips to help you master eating at fine-dining restaurants
Read more ‘How to Do Anything’
More SCNG Premium content
As he hacked it up, he said nothing. He seemed almost serene.
I also said nothing during all of this, but I remember thinking that the guy was probably new to the game. No problem for me, just something to know as we played.
But I was wrong. By hole No. 7, the guy who’d looked so lost on holes 1 and 2 was shooting close to par. He’d followed his awful start with a string of birdies and frankly amazing shots and putts that revealed him to be a scratch or better golfer. His golf horribleness was less than my own. A lot less.
At about hole No. 8, we exchanged the only words we ever spoke.
I asked how he’d managed to stay so calm during those first two holes. He’d looked confident back then, even when he had no business looking that way. That’s a life skill I’ve needed, desperately, yet never possessed. I wanted the secret.
His answer: “Time. Every (bad) shot just meant I was just one shot closer to being who I really am. It was just about time.”
So maybe he was, who, Yoda? I don’t know. I didn’t ask his name and we didn’t talk again. But I’ve always remembered that attitude.
I’ve also never forgotten the prostate cancer guy.
Most people survive that particular malady, but some don’t. And something about our exchange made me care. He eventually told me he was a little scared but, at his age (he appeared to be in his early 70s), he felt like he’d done enough in life to be OK with whatever might come.
That’s a lot to know about a person.
I just never got his name.