THE ORDINARY HACKER’S career in golf parallels a Russian fiction novel. War and Peace, perhaps, for the endless number of mundane turns and the multitude of characters coming in and out. Crime and Punishment, maybe, because, on balance, we get what we deserve. The individual rounds, meanwhile, are like Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, in that little actually happens, yet we’re hooked.
SOME GOLFERS, offered a cup of joy or a cup of pain, will take the cup of pain. They have an expectation of frustration, bad bounces and poor lies, and boy, does the game give them all of that. As a shaky 10-handicapper, I can’t deal with the pain. It would overwhelm me. So I ignore almost all of the bad things. I play nine holes five times…