The very first time I ever swung a golf club, it was during gym glass in junior high school when the instructor must have wanted us to try some other sport besides basketball, baseball, and tag football. A good idea in principle, I suppose, but lacking in the implementation. There were no golf courses within 20 miles of the school, only a handful of beater clubs available, and no golf balls. Not even those plastic practice balls. What's the next best thing though? Why, pine cones, of course.

 

So, we spent one hour or less of one day hitting pine cones all of 20 feet or so. During this time, the football players in the class would have nothing to do with this sissy sport and enjoyed themselves snickering at those less close-minded folks who were willing to try something, even if only once. It wasn't until college some years later before I picked up a club again (it was a permanent addiction from that point on).

 

What made me think of this was the article that Golf Digest published this month entitled the "Top 100 in Music". It's a list of musicians who play golf ranked by their USGA Handicap Index. I can imagine that a number of people on this list probably used to sneer at the sport in much the same way that the football player types I knew did. Can you picture these guys on a golf course and lovin' it? Eddie Van Halen, Alice Cooper, Snoop Dogg, Meat Loaf, Tommy Lee, and Kid Rock.

 

A few years after my initial foray into the sport, I ran into one of those guys ... on the golf course. Thought that was funny ironic.

There are some nice putting greens at some of the courses in Michigan and there are some nice par 3 courses too, but how many putting courses can you claim to have played? If you are like me, none. Oh, Pirate's Cove doesn't count.

So, here is your chance to give one a try. I'll have to finagle a trip somehow and head up to Bucks Run in Mount Pleasant to try theirs. Looks very cool. Probably a very busy place on a warm summer evening.

Continuing with the series, here is another hole for the list.

Some of the things that can confound your par efforts here include-

Looking over the recaps of the USGA championship season in the members publication Inside the USGA, I see that another year passes without a tournament in Michigan. It got me to wondering when the next one will be held here. I kind of squandered the opportunity to see the APL when it came to The Orchards in 2002. I don't want that to happen next time.

 

The USGA Championships page on their website lists future competitions. It only shows the next two years, but that's enough for me to realize that it's going to be a while before an amateur event comes to the State. Sure, we've got some PGA events on horizon, but I'd like to see something a little less popular. When I attended a practice round of the Ryder Cup in 2004, there was, like, a trillion people there. Hard to see much of anything. The Ryder Cup was bad too because there were only a few groups actually playing. But, it was still very cool being there - something I need to do more often. It's worth going even if it is just for the opportunity to walk on these courses that you would otherwise be arrested for being on. Unless you're lucky enough to know a member or have some rare opportunity arise.