P.B. Shelley, Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, 1816
Autumn Golf
By MacDuff
As it must, fall approaches. Though I wish it would hold off just a few more weeks. I feel certain that I am on the brink of finally hitting down and through a golf ball. Of course, I’ve been at this for many years, but these things take time. One does not just go out one day and decide to golf well. Intentions are one thing in golf, execution is quite another. But I do wish the weather would permit a few more rounds.
My golfing acquaintances established, smugly, I think, in more southerly climes will play on for several more weeks, if not months. Whenever they chance to call, they never miss the opportunity to ask about the weather. “Played 18 this morning,” they say, “Beautiful weather here. How is it up there?” Generally, it is not so great up here. In fact, it’s often miserable, at least for golf. Sports and recreation here, if you are not inclined to the snowy sort of exercise, moves indoors. For months, during the dark winter days, we northern golfers brood and ponder. We clean our clubs, ready the shafts and practice the short take-away and release in the hidden sanctuary of our bedrooms.
But golf in the fall takes on a special urgency north of the Mason/Dixon Line. The sun’s lower course through the heaven casts a softer, more mellow light upon the landscape, not the crisp, sharpened light of a brilliant summer day. The old trees that line our fairways are brilliant in their own way now, wearing coats of bright yellows, oranges and reds. Their falling leaves litter the fairways, creating a seasonal hazard of sorts as wayward balls seek shelter beneath them, easily hiding from view. We stride through leaf piles, mid irons waving at the rustling leaves in hopes of discovering the little bugger. Might as well be a 10-foot deep pond for as often as you find it.
The road home for a putt is never easy on an autumn green. The greenskeeper has been busy preparing his charges for the icy times to come. Putts bounce and skitter along greens that are punctuated with hundreds of aeration holes. Leaves, twigs and nuts provide additional impediments to bogey. But this is of no consequence, really. For we are out golfing on a beautiful fall day. This is a gift. Putts? Let them fall when and if they may.
It is sweater weather. The woolies come out and the warm socks. There is something about wearing a sweater on a cool day for a round of golf that is appealing. I’ll often put on the plus-fours for fall rounds as I’m not fond of muddy, dirty trouser bottoms. Cooler winds swirl around the fairways, through the trees, agitating the leaf piles, and with them the message that time is short. There is an urgency upon the air, an urgency punctuated by the wind, the light and leaves. Time is short. Summer’s lease has come due and all those fall chores beckon; the windows, the lawn, the myriad small repairs and details that haunt the homeowner’s mind like the black cats, ghosts and witches that begin to show up on porch fronts and windows.
But, to the golfer, these chores can wait. A good fall day, one that is crisp but not unreasonably chilly, sunny with immense grey clouds scudding overhead, the flags on the pins stirring briskly, ah, these are the days meant for golf. We call our friends and find they, too, are eager to get out. And so we go.
I’ll get to the storm windows when the first snows fly. I promise.