Have you stood on a fairway at
daybreak waiting for your golf partner to take their shot? The air is nippy at that hour. There is the squelch of dewy grass. A steady stream of headlights snake up from the front gate. Birds confer and call out to their clans. The trees are still recovering from the night's shadows. An odd dog barks. There is the hush of human application and aspiration. Thoughts of hot chocolate flavoured coffee just two holes down jig about in the pinching air. The metal face of the club lofts the orange ball and the reverie is broken. Everyone resumes their purposeful advance towards the greens . But the opportunity comes up again. For daydreaming. Golf is like that! Punctuated with tit bits of zoning in and zoning out. You can be more alone in company here than any place else. It is an odd space. Your prayers are never answered. You keep hoping to come upon lost balls, they remain in hiding. You are sure to screw up a shot right after the par, they say! Bad behaviour speaks louder on the course than anywhere else. There are a sea of unwritten rules. You must always pounce to take the putt that is conceded. The actual hit will be nothing like the practice shot. You can prepare to feel intimidated by as peripheral a thing as the adversary's golf kit or her powerful drive. But there are aspects, a golfer will insist no one else who has not missed a par will know and understand. The game gets you up early. There is glamour, an eternal degree of difficulty and an exclusivity that humans crave It is a flourishing, prosperous world out there where rules still hold and and boundries respected. Above all, the game is an excuse to laugh at and with each other.
