Golf Fore the Good

Though the fairways still stretch out green and lovely, they are lined by the browns and grays of leafless trees, a battalion of camouflaged soldiers standing guard over emptied corridors. The starter’s shack stands like a lone sentinel, a watch tower overlooking the first tee, devoid of players and activity. A small sandwich board proclaims the only law of the land that matters: Golf Course Closed for the Season.

Local players have scattered like refugees. The heartiest have marched across town to the remaining municipal golf course, to wage battle there against the winter weather. Some have relinquished the fight and traveled to more promising venues in warmer climes. Many are simply huddled indoors, having hidden their clubs away, imagining a better time and hopeful of their eventual return to play.

From the outside looking in, the fairways appear wide open and more undulating than they do up close. The rolling expanse appears to have roiled up like a rogue wave and shaken off its crew of players, each and every one, into the unknown. The course lies empty and adrift, a ghost ship left to the whim of the wind and weather.

A skeleton crew of maintenance workers cruises here and there, tending and pruning and smoothing the abrasions of a long season of wear. By late afternoon the course is devoid of even their presence. It is so very, very quiet.

Naked tree branches clack and whirl softly in the wind like the hushed whispering of the reels of an old movie projector in a silenced room. From time to time, the occasional hiker or dog walker appears, framed against the landscape. Most visitors pass wordlessly for there are no foursomes to greet, few friends to hale. There are no rangers to urge one forward, no ticking time piece to appease. Free to amble with no urgency to find a wayward ball, there are no rules to invoke, no strokes to count. For the moment there are no struggles, no strategy, no agenda, no goals.

There is time now to walk the course at a less hurried pace, to wander haphazardly and appreciate the land and views. We see the course through different eyes and are granted a reminder that the land came first before the course. For this short time the land reverts, if not to its natural state, than to a less structured and more natural place.

It is nearly impossible to imagine the fairways filled with eager golfers, with the hum or golf carts and the buzz of competition. For now, the land is the dominion of Canada geese, of red tailed hawks and coyotes, free to graze and soar and stalk with little interruption.

While the course is hushed it is not lonely, nor is it stagnant. Subtle changes mark each day, be they by human hand or nature’s fancy. Come spring, we’ll note the changes made; the fallen trees, the lush new grass, the bunkers gaping wide and smooth. Come spring, the quiet calm will dissipate and we’ll come back to golf and to renew our determined efforts, sticks in hand.