Golf Fore the Good

Golf. It is widely considered to be the most addictive of sports activities. They call it “getting the bug.” A more apt expression would be hard to imagine. Golf gets under one’s skin and permeates life on every level. Like many chronic conditions, the affliction spreads very slowly in some, or may remain dormant for years. In others, there is an early onset of symptoms which rapidly intensify.

Sometimes it advances in subtle ways. Golf can be justification for a really long walk and the easiest excuse for skipping a day at the gym. It can manifest itself as a half day of solitude and meditation or four hours of intense therapy with your best friends. Golf is absolutely the perfect excuse for taking a sick day and is the best medicine for pretty much anything that ails you. It is a tonic for spring fever and a balm for workday blues. Golf is a bitter-sweet elixir. It is, at the same time, a salve and an irritant and individual reactions vary greatly. How well we know the pains it can cause!

There is often a self-imposed quarantine from many of our friends, from those who have yet to be exposed. Our non-golfing friends look upon our playing partners as parasites who slowly tap the life we once knew…before… and often shun them as the carrier of the malady that courses amongst us. It is true; the fever is highly contagious, hits hard and can consume us.

Episodes may be mild to severe. There are days the stricken appear perfectly normal and then… at any moment, out of the blue, one can lose all eye-hand co-ordination; our arms may uncontrollably flail about and we lose all sense of balance. Brain cramps and heart palpitations are to be expected. Yet round after round, we drive ourselves forward, overcoming wild mood swings and moments of acute anxiety.

Some say, as with other addictions, the only choice is abstinence. No doubt, symptoms become more and more severe the more we expose ourselves. There is no cure. And the only prescribed treatment? More golf, of course.