Range Finders (or How I Learned my Limitations)

The following is all about destinations, and a fair amount of jealousy. For some (Fred and Coach), looking through their Range Finder is a portal to the future. X number of yards determines their choice of club. Verification comes with a nod if they’re playing together, or an announcement to those nearby about the distance that awaits the flight of their ball. “Fred says it’s 138 yards; I’ll use a 7 iron …” I nod, knowing that the odds of his orb hitting the green are at least four times as great as mine, even though we’re sharing the same distance. His fluid swing now spent, the ball is not only headed in the right direction but has what appears to be the right trajectory/distance. Now it’s my turn. I’m thinking, okay, 138 yards, downhill, wind coming from left to right, blue pin, and damn, the property taxes were dear this year! 

My “swing,” which even on the back portion is beginning to feel like a flail, pounds the fairway so hard a divot the size of Rhode Island goes further than the ball. I look down at the scraped earth and see a gathering of Lilliputians around it, mourning a passed resident. I look back over at Fred, who says, “A bit fast ...” Denny is looking down at his feet, not wanting to make eye contact. I suddenly feel like a Morlock from “The Time Machine.” I step off the 138 original distance to my ball and I’m left with 125 yards. I take a practice swing Couples would envy and actually hit the ball in the area of the green (area, not on). I think I can hear the collective sighs from my teammates. And the obligatory, “Chip and a putt” is recited to my right somewhere—I nod in agreement, not actually believing it for a second, though I have to admit it’s a nonfiction possibility.  

Christmas has brought me a Bush-something range finder; I’ve been practicing on the trees that once lined a fairway outside my back yard. It occurs to me I might very well be teaching this instrument that the distance to trees trumps anything green and flat, housing a flag. But I’m sure it’s just my vivid imagination. I was thinking that these range finders should be like alcohol: you have to be a certain age (handicap) to own, use, or make distance announcements. 

It also occurs to me that there is a certain amount of pure arrogance for someone of my dis-caliber even to suggest that knowing the distance will encourage any scintilla of a successful swing! I know, I’m sure, positive—the first time I use this … this thing on the course, I will look into the view finder only to read a line crossing the view saying, “Who the hell are you kidding, Raggio?” and then it will emit canned laughter so loud anyone within 200 yards will hear it!

Bush-this.

Life’s a guess and so are my irons!

Stayin' alive with 805!

The bubbles from my freshly poured 805 rush from some invisible point at the bottom of my tall glass only to disappear in the awaiting head.  Don Ho and cheap champagne come to mind until I tilt the brew and let it wash over my tongue and tempt my mouth with a familiar blend of tease and ease. 

g

p.s. Post 805: 120/67  

9 has gone equine: sorta

These wonderful sculptures now adorn the fairway to the right of hole #9...

Sherpa Golf!

Thursday Golf

Frost delay: high 20s … duh!  

The backup looks like a base camp with Sherpas separated into fours, blowing smoke into their hands, crossed arms patting the padding to keep the circulation going, bodies tilting back and forth to keep their legs from revolting. 

And now the introduction of wind applies another measure of misery—and/or excuse.

Heard today on the course:

"You ever notice that watching Raggio playing golf is like watching someone falling off a ladder?"

"Ladder?! Scaffold!"

"He calls his driver Feast or Famine.”

"That driver hasn't seen a meal in months!”

They might at least have whispered it!

Dick reminded me today of his comment on drinking: "I drink for effect!"  Love that man (now that I have my 805 back!).

My Phelps lesson paid dividends today: While not on every drive, some, when I remembered the comment, were smile-makers.  Fred: YOUR FAULT, THANK YOU!

Lyle was back, good to see him; the temperature difference between Oahu and base camp clearly angered his hat.

For those who celebrate Christmas, have a happy one or merry one, or whatever they say. I would say Bah Humbug, but apparently that is no longer p.c.  So until Tuesday, I'm going to be either Jewish or a Jehovah’s Witness! (Just kiddin’!)

805 is back on the menu!!!

No more rules about O'Doul's,  805 is back on tap!

Twosome shoots double century - 205 combined!

It was Coach and Raggio. Might as well have been Heckle and Jeckle ... Without a soul in sight, back or forward, the two played some of the worst golf “played” in years—even the coots turned their collective heads. By the time they got to the cafe,  the waiters were already whispering! Coors and O'Doul's! There was no deserving an 805—they were told not to even ask …

Excuses:  Wind:not! Temp(70):not! Drugs or Alcohol:not! Zombie interference:not!

12-15-17- R.I.P.!

When a Scramble isn't a Gamble!

When Alan is "on" and he happens to be your partner, and you happen to be playing in a "Scramble" format, the game is, "What wedge should I use?" I know Sam knew, no matter how far we might have driven the ball, Alan's drive (if driven reasonably straight—which his were on this date) would give us a massive advantage over our opponents. Not an ounce of braggart in the man, he reminds me of Mantle after a prodigious home run—head down, rounding the bases, almost embarrassed by the distance. Alan, after confirming the flight, has already bent down to pick up his tee; the small smile might grow wider if you bow to him as he walks to his cart. Time after time, Sam and I just shook our heads and/or bit our bottom lips. On the par 5 16th, after hitting a drive well inside the 200-yard marker, Sam and I hit 3-woods that would come up short. Alan's 3-iron gave us Eagle putts … and it went like that nearly the whole day.  

Recommendations from the others after the game—that Alan play left-handed or blindfolded—while understood, will not become reality! 

Typical Monday...

Coach with his sciatica, Phelps with his bad knee/toe, Riva and Raggio suffering on and off with a bad lower-left back, Wade and his wrists, Lyle with his bad hat ... The list goes on and on. We should seriously consider renaming the club: The Inevitables!!

Hole #3: Coach pulls out his new range finder and announces, "It's exactly 134.3 yards to the pin." Phelps digs deep in his bag, takes out a sextant, and adds, "And three inches." Coach nods—Wade slaps his head so hard he begins to wobble and I've bitten into my bottom lip so hard I can't stop the bleeding. Damn aspirin!

Truism

5150 Golf

The Health and Safety Code offers an option to cops and docs, when they come across a mentally challenged individual or if they even suspect it, to “5150” them, which means to place them on a 24-hour hold for a psych evaluation. There are three different evaluations, and the person must meet at least one of the conditions:

1.  Pose a danger to one’s self

2.  Pose a danger to others

3.  Be gravely disabled

When after nine holes Riva’s score was 51 and mine 50, we both had a good laugh at the connotation.

I realized after a moment, it wasn’t funny: my game is a danger to me, and to others, and it is past gravely disabled! Riva notices the frown and shrugs; we’re playing for a beer and the game is very close. Of course, he’s playing for a real beer and I’m playing for the faux beer: O’Doul’s. 
We’re standing on the corner in Winslow Arizona … Okay, stop there, Raggio—refocus. We’re standing on the 15^th tee when we see the gal chasing a ground squirrel. I whistle; she stops in her tracks and comes trotting over. She's less antsy than the last time we saw her. All I have is half of a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. I take my last small bite as she rolls her eyes. I toss a piece and she gratefully downs it, another and she’s scraping her front paws in anticipation. I toss the last piece and wave her off; she’s “trained” enough to know when it’s time to let me return to my misery. Halfway down the fairway, I look back and from all angles coyotes are closing in on her: her no-longer-pup pups … They knock her over and she jumps up to attack. They become submissive, only to “attack” again. She’s rolling over, they’re jumping and rolling over—for no reason at all, or maybe for all the reasons there are …

(Riva bought the “beer” but only by a stroke. We never waited; the joint was empty and about 68 degrees. It was, as Riva put it, “A perfect day to spoil it.”)

12/7/17 Swings and Things

The gal...

...is back. After 3 weeks she finally showed up on #12. She was much much more cautious, didn't get anywhere near as close as we're accustomed to her coming- her coat was full and she appeared healthy.  Two fig newtons and a half of a bologna/mayo on white and she was off!  

For cause?

The only thing that truly frightens me is irony.

g

Von’s (Safeway)

Von’s in December: I can hear the echo of coughing three aisles away, someone’s nose blowing—so much sneezing it sounds like a trap-shooting contest. People holding Kleenex up to their noses … I see my reflection in the freezer door: I’m Tony Randall. 

Only happens in Von’s—in Raley’s, I’m once again Clark Gable.

Baby, It’s Cold Outside—on the “Hit” List! WTF!

(What follows is mostly true.)

I’m sitting in the waiting room to get my blood drawn for my physical. My blood pressure was completely normal when I left the doctor’s exam room and she had commented on my fitness and weight gain and attitude. I’m thrilled—that is, until I overhear the two women next to me talking about the latest social no-no, faux pas, or where the line was crossed on the PC scale once again: the song (one of my favorites) “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” I can feel pressure building in my jaw, neck, and gums. What in the hell is wrong with the words or intent of the man’s side of this song, and where exactly is the insensitivity? She can get up and fucking leave anytime; she even says, “Well, maybe one more …”  How do we know he didn’t save her from pneumonia?!

That song was written in 1944! The two women look at me; I’m flinching like I’m getting stung by a herd of wasps, and my squinting eyes challenge their raised eyebrows. I say, “No! You’re telling generations, literally generations, that they’ve been insensitive, overdosed on social novocain! What’s next? You keep telling people what they’ve done wrong over the decades or centuries and they just might rebel: the fucking cake is already baked—you can’t go back and tell them this was the way it was supposed to cook! You’re gonna get a lotta people mad and they might just elect a moron as the president of these un-United States!”

(Couple people nodding, and I’m feeling inspired, emboldened.) 

“And another thing!” (I’m getting into my own rant.) “You want to talk sensitivity? What about those homeless pigeons that can’t land on all these statues?” (I see eyebrows raise, but I plod on.) “Besides, nothing could be more ironic and telling than 100 years of pigeon shit! I mean you gotta know that these homeless birds are going to start looking for moving targets now! I want to start a movement called Pennies for Pigeons!”

We have a colorful past; it’s the good, the bad, and the ugly. Nothing you intend to “heal” today is going to change yesterday’s fetid aromas. Tear down tenants and portals to the past and you miss a chance to shake your head and point a child towards an explanation and a lesson about what was.  

(Back to the two ladies.) “Look, I admit, the guy was probably trying to get lucky.”  

Two blushes on old faces, but a trim smile now on both. “AHA! I caught you! SHAME!”

“You like Dino?” 

“Raggio? Mr. Raggio?”  I raise my hand to the nurse and rise, singing a chorus of of Baby, It’s Cold Outside!

Swingin’ in the Rain!

Checking the forecast several times a day, hoping for the sun-dry miracle to appear—reasonable temps and winds. Redefining “showers” against macho and the best excuse for absence.  What would Monday include if passing were the choice?

Dick calls and, without saying it, challenges my fortitude: “Oh yeah, I’m there, man, nooooo problem.” (Lie.)

How many times over all the golf years (which own the same length as dog years) did I show up to prove my Driverhood (new word), only to stand there in a pouring rain looking at the other guys, asking, “Whose brilliant idea was this? I feel like a Sherpa in cleats!” And then there’s always that one guy who looks up and says, “It looks like it might be clearing!” This is the same guy who sees Mother Teresa in his toast. We all look up and take the sky apart in pieces—we’re screwed, because as you-know-who is my witness, someone will follow with, “Could be worse: we could be working!”

Which makes no sense when we’ve all been retired for at least 500 lost balls! 

As Yoda would say, “Break me a fucking give!” (actual quote from The New Yorker)

Blasts from the past!

Yesterday

Toppings ...

Riva looks down the fairway, squinting his eyes in an obvious effort to concentrate. The walk to the teed orb is deliberate. Another threatening glance down the fairway (#16) and Riva initiates his back swing: he promptly tops it.  No one says anything. Topping the ball is like having the ice cream in your cone falling on your lap—everyone looks away as you awkwardly try to re-insert it. 

Raggio takes the tee, Lyle says something positive, and I confidently place my Taylor ball on the tee and nod my head to reassure him that my ball will soon be threatening the atmosphere. My backswing feels a bit fast and my ball skips down the fairway in the same fashion Riva’s ball did.

Lyle mutters something polite to both Riva and me.  He steps up and hits the ball directly down the middle of fairway, picks up his tee without ceremony, and we all head down to our second shots.  

As we go, I yell at Riva, “I bet I out-topped you!” to which Riva proudly responds, “I doubt it, Raggio!” We race down to the balls and begin arguing about who out-topped who.  Now, depending on the angle from which you make your judgment, it could theoretically go either way. Riva argues that his ball is closer to the middle of the fairway. I say, “We’re not talking accuracy here, Lefty, we’re talking distance!”

Lyle chimes in and says, “It might be a tie.” I spin around and say, “Who asked you, Lyle?” and Riva quickly adds, “Yeah, mind your own fairway!” (Whatever that means.) Lyle, now realizing we’re arguing over who topped the ball farthest, begins his giggle and it becomes LL (Lyle’s laughter). He hops in his cart and deliberately drives down the middle of fairway where his ball sits some 100-plus yards ahead of us.  

Now. Riva and I both wait for the other to hit. First one to hit concedes his ball was shorter. We stand there facing each other, arms crossed, until Lyle starts yelling obscenities. We, at the same time, address our balls and proceed to both top the balls again. Lyle’s head now rests on his arms attached to the steering wheel of his cart.

He exits his cart and yells"It's a scramble!" And then he screams, “805!”

And just like “Ollie Ollie Oxen Free,” the lefties are once again friends.

Over a pitcher and all the other king’s men, Lyle recounts, “Who topped who on hole #16?” I push my glass, Riva pushes his, I push my glass further, Riva …

A Social Insecurity

                               

They say that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome; first thing I thought of was golf. I remember playing golf at a level that nearly preceded sex and food. Range two to three times a week, hitting balls until the evening hid them thirty yards out. I practiced putting on my rug until Johnny Carson came on. I was often the first single out, playing alone in the early morning sun or not. I owned the first composite driver—Yonex, as I recall. Hit it on a rope nearly always. And then, as golfers do, watched a friend with a Titleist driver hit past mine; of course, I quickly bought one.  For years I tried to hit it, and from time to time it obeyed, but mostly it was an enigma without a Rosetta Stone. And so came my introduction to:

“Golf Greed”

Contagious as a cold and as serious as an addiction, it will debilitate you—and your wallet/purse. And there are so many sayings warning you about it:  “It’s not the arrow,” etc. My Yonex, my “guarantee of fairway,” sat proud and quiet in the garage, and I ignored it like the reflection of my handicap or the passing of the Balata Ball.  Still, my game was better than most and I had those rounds I could brag about over my Caesar salad.  

Career, retirement, expectations.

Surely if I thought about the game the way I used to, and if I accepted certain limitations (a man’s got to know his limitations), I would quickly catch up to where I was and surpass then, now.

No.

Retired seven years and my game resembles a piñata after the party. Every time I go into my bag for a club, I can see Medusa in there with green eyes flashing and saying, “No fucking way, Raggio.” And after seven years of rounds, I go out there (I think we all do) expecting, for no reason at all except hope, that we are going to have the round we imagine! We all do it. I know this to be true because we all show up. We have that hopeful grin that reflects that mantra all golfers on the first tee repeat under their hats: “This is the day!” It’s the same grin and hat we wore before the last round and the round before that and …

Why am I shooting my temperature? Is there some internal conspiracy? The grins are looking more and more like grimaces. Ground Hog Day sets in and we’re already looking past today’s score and filling it in with the same excuses and dismissals we did halfway through the last round.   

The affliction of the addiction is not fiction.  Pass the 805, please …

Monday 11/20/17

Fall at Eagle:

1st Tee

                                                    

I wish I could recall what I said to Lyle on #5 as he was setting up for his second shot -I muttered something that made him back off and then bend over laughing hysterically, Coach and I had no choice but join him: it was one of those contagious laughs that "giggled" into the next hole.  I wanted to remember so when he's on the other team I can throw it at him again! Silly day- I think golf came up once or twice...

Coach bought the 805!

(Still no gal)