Nothing is so pathetic-looking as the northern golfer whose weekly nine-hole league has finished for the season.
You know us when you see us. Wandering the house and yard aimlessly, taking imaginary practice swings as we contemplate whether to tackle fall home improvement projects or put them off for another week. Or month.
To be sure, the golf season has not ended; autumn actually is the best time to play in Ohio, until the leaves fall. But the end of league play means the loss of the three C’s: competition, camaraderie and cold beverages, all enjoyed under the pretense of PGA Tour-type tournament golf.
Advertisement: If you don’t play golf, now is the time to begin. Courses are less crowded. Temperatures are not as blistering. Get out there and swing away. Take it up a notch from Top Golf and Putt-Putt to an actual driving range, followed by nine holes at a course with cheap greens fees. If you play enough to know to repair your ball mark on the green – and for those who know but don’t do it, shame on you – then you understand what I mean when I say the game offers the kind of entertainment, wrapped in better-than-nothing exercise, that professional golf cannot match.
In fact, TV networks are missing the boat by promoting pro golf, whether the PGA Tour or LIV, at the exclusion of the sleeping giant that is “after-work” league golf.
Allow me to explain. The TV networks over the past few years have begun to interview pros during tournament rounds, but the conversations are only mildly interesting.
Put a microphone on a high-handicapper during a league match at a city course like Raymond and prepare to be entertained.
Good and bad golfers hit the links at Raymond Memorial
The Wednesday Raymond league I play in is typical of most in that it comprises both low and high handicappers, a few of the former who take the game too seriously and a few of the latter who don’t take it seriously enough. Neither is an indictment of character but simply part of what makes local leagues so enjoyable.
The clothing. For every nattily attired 2-handicapper (for nine holes) whose legs have never seen the light of day – long pants in 95-degree heat? – there is the 50s shooter outfitted in a Hawaiian shirt who, on about the third hole, reaches into his bag and pulls out mini bottles of Jack Daniel’s to share. Cheers!
You don’t get that kind of coarse course behavior from the pros, John Daly excluded, who are so cookie-cutter during tournaments you can’t tell one from the other. Pull the string on their backs and they all say the same thing.
The characters. Something you don’t see at the Masters: We have a league player, who shall remain nameless, who aims perpendicular to the target when taking practice swings on the tee. Such a routine doesn’t make sense to me, since the point is to hit the ball where you aim it. And he often does. We call him Mr. Sideways.
The needling. Much of the banter is R-rated, but there is enough PG-13 for you to get the idea.
To the slow player: “You gonna hit the ball or just stare it to death.”
To the long hitter: “I hear those steroids can be hard to swallow.”
To the short hitter: “Maybe just throw it next time?”
To the player who – ahem – can never find his ball. “Check the woods. It’s usually there.”
The last week of the league, I took it upon myself to serve as a TV commentator, describing shots with the seriousness of CBS golf broadcaster Jim Nantz but with the delivery of Bill Murray’s Carl Spackler in “Caddyshack.”
“He’s got 235 yards to the hole. I’m guessing 3-wood, Dave. What’s this? A 6-iron? And … he tops it.”
The nerves. Funny how a golfer can hit the range or play a non-competitive round with buddies and hit the ball like Tiger Woods (at age 11), but put that same player in a league match and watch him melt like the Wicked Witch of the West swinging a driver instead of a broom. You don’t know pressure until hitting a 15-foot putt to 3 feet and hearing your opponent say, “I’m gonna need to see you make that.” Gulp. I sometimes play recreationally with guys who consider 5-footers to be gimmes. You don’t know loneliness until you gag a 2-footer to lose a hole, at which point your partner and two opponents treat you like you have a communicable disease.
Did I pull the putt? Push it?
“You missed it.”
Amateur golf leagues would be must-see TV
You get the picture. Put this stuff on network TV and you get “Curb Your Enthusiasm” meets “Knives Out” with a touch of “Happy Gilmore” and “Tin Cup” tossed in for good measure. The play itself isn’t bad, either. Our league champs, Mike and Jason, were down and out in the championship match before two birdies on 16 turned it around. They guzzled beer from the cup-shaped trophy. Cheers!
But instead of getting “Real at Raymond,” we’re getting PGA Tour players Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler facing LIV golfers Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka in a December exhibition match played in Las Vegas. It should be mildly entertaining but mostly feels like a band-aid to help cover the wound of a professional game in disrepair. The match, scheduled to be on TNT, will be lucky to attract 5 million viewers – the Tiger Woods-Peyton Manning vs. Phil Mickelson-Tom Brady match of 2020 averaged 5.8 million cable viewers – and comes too late to excite amateur hacks in northern climes.
Part of what makes TV golf popular is watching pros stripe it 320 yards down the fairway and then going out the next day to try to copy the best. We watch and want to scratch the itch, but in December the only itch is dry skin.
It’s time to give the game back to those who appreciate its idiosyncrasies and idiots. Hey CBS, meet me at Raymond next April. You won’t regret it.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Golf leagues like PGA Tour and LIV could learn from watching amateurs
