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Golf Is Now A Hazard [1]

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Date: 2023-06-10  

I didn’t start out loving golf. I was about 10 when my stepfather introduced me to the game. Back then, the local Speedway gas station (well, that’s what it is now), was selling golf clubs for $5 each.

I got a driver, 5, 7 and 9 irons, and a putter. Wow, did I hate that putter. The feeling was mutual, I assure you. All the putters hated me. Even the new one I got later on. Fickle things, the lot of them.

But time passed, and over many courses over many years, a lot of those courses leading me Over The River and Through the Woods, because nobody starts off any good at all, I learned to play well enough that I could shoot under 100 on a decent day on a not so decent course. Eventually.



My brother, who also played golf, used to get up in the morning and go caddy at the country club a couple of blocks from my Grandmother’s house. I used to sleep in. And then he started coming home with some folding money, and I thought to myself, “How hard can it be, lugging a golf bag around 18 holes?” The answer, if you’re interested, is “Old People Would Have Heat Stroke By The Third Hole Caddying,” kind of hard. Especially at the height of Illinois summer; walking down those watered fairways 95F; It was like wading through a swimming pool.



it’s 1972. Girls don’t caddy, but I went down to the caddy shack, learned the basic rules by following a couple caddy instructors around a few holes that served as training and, despite the glares of my fellow caddies-to-be, and the caddymaster, I started showing up for rounds. Every day. Early.

I’m not going to say that there wasn’t resistance to me. Especially at first. It was a nice country club, with a moderately interesting golf course, tennis courts and a pool for the ladies and the children, except on Tuesday, when the ladies were allowed to play the course. Tuesday sucked because none of the ladies did side bets, and they were all terrible, begrudging tippers. Some of the men golfing were betting with Big (to me) Money, $1000 felt like a lot of tension to me, I watched their faces, the too careful swings; the one memorable day Harvey F_____ got in trouble for landing his helicopter on the 1st fairway because he was late; another time I was offered $100 if I would retrieve a member’s putter from over the fence (the answer is no, sir, I cannot leave the course, however I will escort you to the gate to outside the course) and some of the men considered me a distraction. Dude. I’m invisible. I’m not distracting you at all. Most of the time I’m 150 yards away. Forecaddying. Furthermore, I wasn’t anything to look at, just someone schlepping your bag down the fairway. Nothing to see here.

They didn’t see it like that. There was a lot of juvenile nudging (these are supposed to be grown men) and winking and not very hushed queries of, “What are you going to say if she asks you if you want your balls washed?” It got old, really fast, probably in the same way tall people feel when they get asked how the weather is up there.



One day, I had enough. I’m 14 or 15 years old, but I had long tired of the Sniggering Game that a lot of men played on the course. Mostly with me. The innuendo. The “balls in the bushes” jokes. I felt terrible for the alcohol cart girls; they really got it. The whole thing. And, sure as you don’t stand under a tree during a lightning storm on a golf course, one overly humid day, doing my second lap, some wag got to one of the ball wash stations, asked me leeringly if I would please wash his balls for him. “Sir,” I heard myself saying, from very far away feeling my brain shimmer in the heat, “the rules state that you are to play one ball at a time. Therefore, I can only wash one ball. Would you like to give me the one in your hand, or were you implying a different sort of ball washing? Because that costs a whole lot extra, and I don’t think your friends want to see your shortcomings.” I looked around to see who said that, because I don’t know where I got the nerve to say that.

Dead silence.

Followed by riotous laughter. Some weird ritual male poking.

That was the last time anyone disrespected me that way for all the years I caddied there. Meantime, my game got better. I played a lot of golf for a little while, taking full advantage of Caddy Monday, and caddies alike. Side bets. It was nice, not playing on the pasture that many of the public courses felt like, and I could shoot mid 90s on it.



After I spoke up for myself, it was more comfortable, if not exactly chummy for me at the club. One day, prior to the Ball Washing Incident at the 14th, a man decided that I was not going to caddy for him, no way, no how, nossir. This guy was one of “The Boys,” as we caddies named them, speaking in hushed tones of fat tips and the Big Money. Nice tips. Best a caddy could hope for all day, honestly. Better if they won, but okay when they lost, too. Like they didn’t forget that you were a person lugging their bag. And it was my number came up, so this guy was my bag. Of course I would have happily caddied for any of them, and when that “Boy” declared me Unsuitable, I don’t know...something in me just snapped. I could taste electric rage on my tongue.

I threw a very large tantrum right there on the first tee. Called the club member a dumbass, told him that I was the best caddy standing there, and proceeded to upend his entire golf bag. Never before and never since have I lost my temper on the course, but one moment I was standing there, waiting for tee off, and the next moment, I was teed off, tossing Mr. Cxxxx’s clubs hither and yon, some of them down the first fairway, a few reaching the 18th green. Balls everywhere. Very unprofessional of a caddie. And then I stomped home.



Caddies are hard to fire. We didn’t have cell phones. And there weren’t many other jobs that appealed to me at the time. Another summer working in downtown Chicago, filing paper income tax copies of what we had sent to the IRS? With my mother? Stultifying. Fast food? Too young yet. Also just No.

Seriously, all 5’4” of me would rather carry a double 18 holes in 90 degree summer heat than do any of those alternatives. So I got up the next morning, early, and when I got to the caddyshack, was informed that the person whose clubs I’d dumped all over the course the previous day, emptying everything in the bag including the lint at the bottom, wanted me to caddy for him. Resistance was futile. Huh.

I don’t hold a grudge, I hold a golf bag, and he pays well, so I meet him at the 1st tee, where I apologize for losing my temper the previous day. He studied every blade of grass at the 1st tee and mumbled something about “lots of money.” Something something something “sorry.”

By the 4th hole, he apologized to me again. A For Real apology. Sincere. He did it again at the 6th. And the 10th, 12th, 15th and 18th. It’s 1973 and he tipped me $50 that day. Asked for me every time he played with The Boys that entire summer, much to the chagrin of the other caddies.



Word seemed to float among the golfing members of the club that it would be a good idea to just let the smart mouthed girl caddy carry their bags, and after a while, the members came around. Got friendly, even, especially when they discovered that I did actually play golf. Sometimes they would think of me when they went on vacation, bring me a tchotchke from their travels, or ask about my college plans. They were terrible golfers, most of them, but they were also mostly good people. Okay, maybe nobody should have semi-heckled me at first, but there were No Girl Caddies before me. It’s hard to be the different one. Anyway, it wasn’t like some of the men didn’t remember what it felt to be singled out, The older gentlemen, in particular were almost courtly with me. They knew from being Singled Out. One of them brought me a beautiful Star of David, with a piece of turquoise on it, that he bought in Israel for me. It is in my jewelry box now, thank you, Mr, Frankel. (Who has probably passed on by now.)



I forgot to mention that this was a Jewish country club, and some of you may wonder why that is even relevant to this golfy (goofy?) diary in the first place. I’m getting there. All I knew @1970 was that the Jews had their own country clubs, and my Gram’s not Jewish club had no black members, either; it was just the way it was when I grew up, and I didn’t think to ask, not even at 15. It never made any sense to me the differentiation, because my grandmother was welcome to play bridge with her ladies at her own country club and the Jewish ones. A mystery. Golfing members could invite anyone they wanted. And I could bring any of my friends to the pool in the summer; probably about half of them were Jewish. Nobody parted the swimming pool waters. Again, not a thing my friends and I thought about. I went to high school where Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were school holidays. The only thing I thought about people belonging to different country clubs were that they all seemed wealthy. All of the country clubs seemed to run on Money to me. Which was green everywhere.



I mention that I caddied at the Jewish country club, because it is relevant in that I was old enough to note that more than several of the men that I caddied for had numbers in ink on their arms. So I knew where they’d been. WWII was 5th grade history, at least for part of the year. Once upon a time, history was taught in school. Especially the bad things. As though it were a lesson in not to do that again. And I was a voracious reader; history was interesting to me.

I would discreetly look at the numbers and ponder how these men (they were all men) could carry on and play golf and laugh, keep going, even Be Here At All. I know nothing; understand even less of life. I’m about 15, and full of drama and angst. And that ink is not exactly the sort of thing that comes up in conversation. “Nice tattoo you’ve got there,” isn’t a conversation starter. At all.

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I haven’t played golf in years. Honey and I used to play when we were first married, but we decided we had better things to do with our money than chase a ball around, just to put it in a hole. 9 or 18 times. Maybe it was the kids that decided we had better things to do with our money. Disposed of our disposable income but good. Regardless, we haven’t played in years, but televised golf was a pleasant way to spend the afternoon, if you’re stuck indoors because chemo, so napping counts as watching TV. Hence golf. PGA golf.

I refused to watch LIV golf for any reason. On principal. But it got to where I sort of enjoyed watching PGA golf. Or maybe it’s the company I’m keeping these days.

So when I read that all the tours are going to merge and everything will be Fine And Dandy Again Even Though the Saudis will own it, well, that sat quite poorly with me. I do not love this idea and cannot support professional golf any longer. I think back to looking at those numbers on peoples’ wrists and wondering how anyone could hate so hard. Showed me right there. Ink on people is a lot more memorable than any book ink in the world.



It’s also entirely possible I still bear the Saudis a grudge about Mr. Jamal Khashoggi, the completely sickening thing that happened to him, and I wonder just how they expected him to type with no fucking fingers. Heinous. Never going to forget the consequences the Saudis paid for that. It’s easy to remember, because Nothing Happened. A few people frowned and looked concerned. Fists were bumped. Most distasteful.

It’s going to take an ocean of green to wash out that blood, PGA/LIV/Euro Tours. Enjoy your newly merged whatever you want to call it...because we’re out.

We can nap to baseball.

I think of wizened arms and black numbers in the sun, the smiles those men gave me, and I cannot reconcile watching red money in a green sport. Sorry, PGA. You did it to yourself.













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