Reflections on friendship

A week ago it was another beautiful Monday in Chicago. My next-door neighbor text me at 3:30 to ask if I would like to go golfing as close to the 5 p.m. work whistle as possible. “YES!” I replied.

My friend, we’ll call him John, is newer to the game. He bought a bag of clubs last year. He asked if I wanted to go to the driving range one time after. I went, had a blast, and the bug bit me. I soon after bought a cheap bag of clubs on Amazon.

John has a real full-time job. And I am a freelancer. I could break away much more often to golf during a work day. And toward the end of last year, I was golfing 2 to 3 times a week, usually grouped in with strangers at Tee-time.

I started playing golf as a 7 or 8 year old. My best friend’s dad was a big golfer. He would set us up with a bunch of crappy old balls. My dad had a dusty set of clubs in a weathered old black golf bag that I used. My friend Rick used nice clubs that his dad gave him. My dad played golf occasionally throughout life. It’s kind of a staple thing to kind of know how to do.

At my childhood home, there was a long strip between my house and the next door house that we used as our driving range. Sometimes we’d slice and hit my house. Sometimes we’d duff one to bounce 20 to 30 yards away. Sometimes we’d loft one pretty far to the tree line that was about 80 or 90 yards away.

Rick and I went to a golf camp as early teens. We learned the written and unwritten rules of golf. We played for free at a local course during off hours. We learned that better players should be allowed to pass. That at a certain point, for speed of play, you can’t just keep slicing the ball, losing them, or keep hitting out of the sand.

In high school, Rick’s parents gifted me with an old set of clubs, and I joined our school’s golf team in 10th grade. I could drive to the course. We played four times a week. It was a fun time. We learned the rules of tournament play. The etiquette of good sportsmanlike play.

For the most part, it’s a social sport. A gentle person’s sport. The likelihood of making it big are rather excruciatingly small. If you’re playing at this level, you follow the rules closely as to avoid penalties or disqualification. When you’re in a foursome against another team, your job is to look out for your teammate. When you’re playing friendly matches, your job is to look out for all the players in your group. Each person takes turns manning the flag on the green. You share scores and determine who tees off first at the next hole.

After high school, I played a handful of times in college. After I got married, I kept a bag of clubs, like my dad did, in the event someone asked. Which I did occasionally. When I moved during the pandemic, I donated my clubs. I hadn’t played in a few years and they were deadweight.

When John and his new clubs popped up, I got excited at the prospect of a golf buddy. We played several times last year. He insisted on playing by all these new rules that had changed over time. Like, the player must ask another player to pull the flag or man the flag. If a player hits the flag and the ball pops out, it doesn’t count. But there were a ton of other rules and etiquette that he ignored. One time I tried to talk about some rules he kept breaking, and he had nothing of it. He made me feel stupid for suggesting that we help each other with the flag on the greens. He would stand in awkward spots while I tee-d off. He stood with his shadow cast over my ball. He walked in my line on the greens. He played out of order on the course and at the tee-box.

When I played with strangers, there was always a focus on gentleman’s play. There was no hyper focus on rules, because we were just out to have fun. Everyone is always so damn positive.

That Monday, we stood on the tee-box and he asked if I’d keep score. “Of course!” I said. I pulled up an app on my phone and put our names in. After the 2nd hole and a handful of blunders, he says, “Fuck it. I’ll keep my own score. I just wanna play for fun.”

“Okay.” I responded. I had already started keeping his score and mine, so I just clicked that he got par on each hole, but fed in what I counted for each of mine. At first, I sucked ass. I was double and triple bogeying holes 1 to 3 or 4.. Somewhere around hole 4 or 5, I found my swing, and was getting a few bogeys and a par or two. We were slowed down by four young teens in front of us. And we wanted to play as fast as possible so we weren’t on the 8th hole when the sun was going down.

The group ahead of us sped up at some point, and we were moving along. Playing fast. Not abiding by the rules of the game to keep the speed of play moving forward.

Toward the end of the round, I set up to putt from around 20 feet away. I practice swung. Stepped up. Looked at the hole. Looked at my ball. Looked at the hole. Ball. Back swung and then pushed the ball gently in my line. It magically looked like it was going in. The ball hit the middle of the hole, bounced off the flag pole and bounced out not more than 6″ from the hole.

I looked at it, and said, “I’m going to count it.”

“That’s not legal,” he scoffed.

“Yeah, but we’re not playing by the rules.”

John was obstinate. “It’s not legal, but you do you.”

We kept playing. But I made a mental note how douchey that was. It wasn’t the first time he’d been a dick about golf course rules/etiquette.

Similar behaviors have happened before. John will evade all responsibility to every other rule of the game, but when it comes to another player’s score, he will do everything in his power to negate that a single stroke advantage.

The next day, I text him unrelated, and then tacked on that, while I know the rule is you can’t hit the pin (aka the flag pole) and it counted, I was bewildered by the idea that he was so pompous about me counting the putt. In my mind, we weren’t playing hardly any of the regular rules of play. Why would anyone care if I broke another rule? It wasn’t tournament play. It wasn’t for money. It was a casual game after work.

John was unrelenting. The rule’s the rule. The ball hits the pin, it doesn’t count.

No amount of casual discussion would convince him that in an impromptu game, after work, the rules could bend.

To me, it’s like having a conversation with an evangelical Christian. Hypothetically of course. This Christian might be obsessed with LGBTQ topics, like it’s an abomination to be gay. Or that marriage is between a man and a woman. Or God doesn’t make mistakes and a person born with male anatomy should be forced to pretend to be a man, while every iota of their being feels female.

“Do you eat shrimp?” one might ask.

“Yes.” they might reply.

“Pork?”

“Of course. It’s delicious!” they exclaim.

“God says not to do that.”

“Those aren’t rules. They are guidelines,” respondeth the Christian.

“Okay,” one might say. “Let’s talk Jesus. He’s God right?”

“Yes,” he says.

“Okay. Do you pray in public?”

“Of course, one must pray before a meal,” says the believer.

“Jesus said not to pray in public like the hypocrites.”

“Well, that doesn’t apply to today’s actions,” he’ll respond.

“What about loving your neighbor and/or your enemy? Jesus, your God, said that directly. What about giving your shirt of your back? Jesus, your god, commanded that. Jesus, your god, also said you must turn the other cheek to get punched on the other side after the first blow. He, your God, also asked you to forgive 70 times 7,” one might say.

“You’re taking the Bible out of context,” our Christian friend might say.

The end game becomes a confusing mess of “My Bible tells me to “love you” by telling you you’re wrong about sexuality. But direct God-breathed words are to be ignored as a passing prescription.”

Which is it? You can’t abide by some rules and not others and expect respect. That was my point anyway with John on the golf course. It’s my perspective with Christians in the game of life.

You want your cake and eat it, too? Play by all the rules or give a sliding glance toward others. Jesus, it’s not that hard y’all.

As we were walking away to the car, we were saying that was fun. Glad we finished before the sun went down.

John says, “What did you get?”

“I have a 47, but I guess it’s a 48 because of that pin hit and bounce out,” I responded. “How about you?”

“I didn’t keep score. I just wanted to play for fun.”

He just wanted to play for fun?

Then why make another player playing for fun feel like a gigantic rule breaker? It’s superfluous negativity. It’s annoying. It’s the damn point to have fun. Support each other. He guys, “Let’s not be a dick!”

Too late.

Too late.