There are signs of life at the course. THE course… the one that has been closed throughout the winter and is to due to reopen in the next few days. Both our municipal golf courses are good tracks, don’t get me wrong. But one is more our work horse, the stay open all winter - mecca for tournaments - wide open fairways - most playable - course. And then there’s our other course.
Always appreciated as a challenging layout, our beautiful little muni has also boasted exceptional conditions for the past few seasons. That is thanks in part, not just to our magician of a green keeper, but also to a bit of additional pampering, off loading the winter wear and tear to the other track and keeping its covetted fairways closed for play during the hardest playing months. It’s a forced layoff that makes getting back out on its fairways all the sweeter.
Each day now I walk the course with the dog with growing anticipation. It has been our nearly solitary stomping ground for months. There have been the ever returning flock of Canada Geese, quickly scattered by the dog, and the ever present hawks circling and screeching overhead. But mostly there has been just the dog and me - and the cold.
Although winter does not leave Cape Cod without a fight, you can feel a change in the air. The natives are restless; we need to play golf! You can stand on a still quiet tee box and almost feel the grass growing beneath your feet and gaze at the empty fairways, imagining the feel of the swing and the flight of the ball. While the sun seems in a constant struggle with our damp sea air, with wind and fog and persistent rain, golf season is coming. We can feel it.
Subtle changes are afoot. While we visited the bar as solitary drop-ins all winter, we travel in groups of threes and fours now, fresh off the course. Conversations pop with plans for tournaments, future pairings and competitions. The lucky ones discuss short soirees down south to warm up our games. Some of us wield new clubs, lured out in weather not quite warm enough but too tempting to let pass without playing at least a few holes.
A hardy soul might appear in the long, late shadows of day with a single iron, pitching and chipping away. Appearing bare and empty for months, the range now lies littered with abandoned balls scattered around on sodden ground or sliced and stranded atop a blown pile of leaves along the edge.
One can imagine, in the solitude, that the defrosting earth itself appears to be birthing golf balls, little white orbs spittled about, more and more every day. They lie in a bizarre, cracked open posture, as if the yawning halves of some alien bird’s eggs have multiplied into a million others just like the first… “and the world was filled with free Titleist for all, forever and ever!”
Spring is coming… our imaginations are running wild and we’re free to dream of another fabulous season of golf to come!
