We chase perfection but bond through failure.
‘I am quite candidly a dreadful golfer,” said Willie Geist, the TV Everyman who I invited to cover the 2011 Masters for Golf Digest. He was questioning whether he deserved the assignment. “I only really play at the public nine-hole on Shelter Island (in New York), where the Caesar salad in the clubhouse gets more grooming than the fairways.” Golfers by nature are put-down artists.
I was reminded of this when I was flipping channels and heard Willie effusing about golf now that he’s rediscovered the game playing with his 16-year-old son George. “I find it sometimes meditative, more often maddening, but really, really hard,” he said, “and that’s what I like about it. You’re with your son or your buddy. It’s four hours. You’re outside in the sunlight, you’re hanging out, you’re actually talking. Nobody’s on their phone. So I’ve come to fall in love with it the past couple of years.” Wait, but that’s not the point.
Willie’s conversation turned to his guest, the journalist Jim VandeHei, who’s asked if he plays golf. “Yeah, I do. I’m terrible,” he said. “I like golf but I really do suck at it.”
And there it is: the universal confession of all golfers. We’re dreadful, we’re terrible. Despite loving the game, we suck at it. Why are golfers as a species so compelled always to proclaim our suckage?
Earlier this year, Viktor Hovland said he “sucks” and in the next round shot 65 at Pebble Beach. “One day I’m great, the next day I suck – that’s golf,” said John Daly. DJ Steve Porter not surprisingly did a compilation rap with Charles Barkley titled, “I Suck at Golf.”
Tim Schantz, who is the chief executive of Troon Golf, said to me the other day: “I don’t understand it. I meet hundreds of people every year, and 99 percent of them say the same thing: ‘Oh, I play,’ they say, ‘but I suck at it.’”
Fishermen don’t say, “Oh, I fish, but I never catch anything.” Neither do skiers or tennis players. You never hear, “I ski, but I’m lousy at it.” Or, “I play tennis, but I stink.” Runners don’t say, “Yeah, I run, but I fall down a lot.” You don’t hear boaters or race-car drivers or amateur pilots admit it either. You’d probably sprint in the other direction if they did. So why do golfers revel in saying how bad they are?
When you say you’re not very good, maybe you’re just acknowledging it before someone sees for themself. You’re really saying, I hold myself to higher standards in other parts of life, but in golf I come up short. I asked the golf coach Jason Goldsmith, who works with Justin Rose. “We’re already negotiating the bet,” he said. Social humility is an inside joke – we’re laughing at ourselves.
Maybe it’s because golf is the most brutally honest sport there is. It lives in cold, hard numbers. Your failures are exposed naked on every shot, in every score, and there’s no hiding behind teammates. There’s all this time for observation and self-assessment. “I am what I am, and that’s self-deprecating,” said Michael Bloomberg, who has accomplished so much in life yet holds a 22 handicap. Bill Gates is off 21, and it’s there for the world to see on the Golf Handicap Information Network.
“Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated.” That quote, which used to be painted on Golf Digest’s office wall in New York, is widely attributed to Arnold Palmer. The first time I saw it, I had to smile. I knew Arnold Palmer. I used to play golf with him, and there’s no way Arnold ever said that. Arnold didn’t use adverbs. He spoke in declarative sentences. I never heard him say, “I suck at golf,” but I could imagine him saying it. He knew the universal struggle that’s an essential part of the game’s identity. We play the only sport where the best in the world can look like the worst, and the worst in the world can hit a shot as good as the best. Arnie knew better than anyone: there’s solidarity through suffering.
When you admit you suck, what you’re really saying is, “Hey, I’m part of the tribe. I’m a golfer.”
Photography by Bettmann/Getty Images
