LOVE AT THE DRIVING RANGE

by Doug McAllister

If you've read my stuff before you know how I view practice at the driving range as being almost as sacred as teeing it up on number 1. Etiquette, please! No unnecessary talking. Concentration. Kinda like a library. Okay, well, maybe not quite. You get the picture.

So, tonight, my son and I went to the Fox Hollow driving range for a bit of appropriate golf introspection. We had just gotten set up when here comes Mr. Young Stud and his Doting Date. Yep. He's come to introduce the young lady to the game of kings. And, yep, he's chattering away as the two of them stroll...you guessed it!...to our end of the range. Angels and ministers of grace defend us!

Golf Rule #103A23Z: Never take a date to the driving range unless she's the golfer and there to teach you!

My first reaction was to glance up and down the range to see if my old friend, Baldy Bermuda, was anywhere in sight. But then I was struck by the sheer comedy of the situation. I turned my attention away from my practice and bent my ear as much as I could upon the conversation.

"I'm good at all sports, ya know," the rambunctious Romeo intoned, "Baseball, football and basketball. But golf is so hard and so challenging that I've decided to focus all my efforts on golf." Polly Purebred just nodded at this. She was probably wondering why on earth she had agreed to this. If the game was as hard as just described, why was he about to subject her to such torture? The lover boy linkster continued: "Yep, golf is my game...no doubts...my game for the rest of my life!" And at that it seemed that his chest got so big that all three button on his golf shirt exploded into the air.

Interesting approach. Was he trying to get her interested in the game or warn her that, should she stay with him, she and her children were going to have to accept being a distant fourth on his priority list, solidly after golf, baseball, football and basketball. And it became rapidly apparent that he hadn't a clue about teaching a novice how to begin the game.

First thing you know, she's hefting a driver like a sledge hammer at the fair and looking at it like she had a cobra by the tail. Now, I don't profess to be an expert on teaching the game, but everything I have experienced with the lesson side of things has a beginner starting with an iron, something with a shorter shaft and a little loft. Something to get the ball into the air.

You with me? I remember warming up before a round once with Bruce Summerhays of the Champions tour. There he was, a pounder that hit his drives a country mile, starting out with a wedge, delicately half-shooting pitches down the driving range. But, as is a problem with me, I digress.

Our hero tees up a ball and sets his sweety up to the side of it. Instructions fill the air like a swarm of angry bees: Keep your head still. Keep your head down. Take it away low and slow. Don't bend your left arm. Sweep it off the tee. Watch it leave the tee. Not surprisingly, his dearest love was as confused as can be but it was immediately apparent that she wasn't there for the golf. Looking at her with a stupid smirk on his face, he says, "Don't look at me! Look at the ball!"

I just about laughed outloud! This kid really did need to devote himself solely to golf and the sooner the better. Here he was with a beautiful young lady who, it was obvious from the way that she was dressed and the way that she looked, wasn't interested a nit in golf. She's staring at him with those big green eyes and all he can say is "Look at the ball?" Priceless! I can just see it. A few years from now there will be an ad in the paper or an advertisement on TV or on the internet. "Come join Brother Benedict's order of Golfing Monks!"

For her part, the fair young lass of tonight's melodrama will one day tell her teenage daughter how she once dated this loser who was so preoccupied with hitting this stupid little white ball that he couldn't see the birds for the bees!

For me, my continuing hope is to find a time on the range, with other golfers whispering like...well...Brother Benedict's monks. Yes. If I close my eyes and concentrate I can see it. A perfect setting to...

Hit 'em long and straight!