Old bags

Amazing what you find going through your old golf bag after not playing since 2017. You know you haven’t played golf in awhile if your visor says Nancy Lopez. Or if you found an airline bag tag that says “Eastern.”

I’d like to, but I’m afraid I can’t blame this multi-year links lapse entirely on the pandemic.

Yesterday, I went downstairs and schlepped my golf clubs out of the basement. What I found was mostly dust and cobwebs. Also a formerly pristine white FootJoy glove reeking of mildew, two crumbled Kleenex packs, old Band-Aids and a bottle of suntan lotion that expired when Barack Obama was president.

Underneath all of that ick, there was something else: my fond memories of playing the game.

Like learning to golf after graduating college in 1983 when I moved to Florida for my first real job. Up until then, I’d hit balls at the range with my Dad and played a few rounds now and then.

Nothing serious. That is, until I lived in Miami.

My boyfriend at the time was a veteran sportswriter from Charlotte and a scratch golfer. He said he had never seen a girl hit it so far. Good pickup line, mister. It worked.

This somewhat older, handsome southern gentleman taught me the game, and we dated for three years until he got tired of proposing. I was in my mid-20s, just beginning my newspaper career and somewhat confused about which team I played for, if you get my drift.

Honestly, kids today may have to deal with global pandemics, TikTok videos and cyber shaming, but when it comes to sexual preference, it seems so much easier nowadays. Nobody cares if you’re gay, straight, transgender or nothing at all.

Your self-identification letter in the LGBTQ alphabet soup mix doesn’t matter nearly as much as it did for those of us growing up in the ‘60s and ‘70s. And that’s a good thing.

I’m happy to say it gets better. With age comes wisdom, and the ability not to give a rat’s fandango what people think.

Anyway, we were talking about golf, weren’t we?

So, living in South Florida, I played a lot of golf, especially during off-season summer months when it was cheaper. I worked afternoons and golfed during the day. Fitting in 9 holes beforehand was easy. I loved it.

A few years later, I moved to Boca Raton and worked nights at a daily morning newspaper, so it was much the same but with the chance to play on nicer courses. Not earning much money, I lived in a golfer’s paradise. And ate a lot of Kraft macaroni and cheese.

Then around 1988, my life changed in every area imaginable. I moved to Wilmington, Del. – yes, that Delaware – to work at a larger newspaper. And yes, I actually met President Biden when he was just Joe and his lovely wife when she was still just Dr. Jill.

During those half-dozen or so years, I was lucky enough to be a news copy editor and also cover professional women’s golf as a sports reporter. This was the era of Hall of Famers Patty Sheehan, Amy Alcott and Pat Bradley.

The LPGA made their northeast swing through upstate New York (Corning), Pennsylvania (Hershey), Maryland (Bethesda) and Delaware, which hosted the LPGA Championship at Wilmington’s DuPont Country Club. I still think about that golf course, which we got to play in the off season. A classic in every sense.

I played a lot of golf well into my 30s and 40s, and at one time was pretty good at it. Not a long hitter off the tee, I had a pretty decent short game with a solid putting stroke and would shoot in the 90s.

“Drive for show, putt for dough,” as Jimmy John would say.

Moving back to Michigan in the mid-1990s, I guess life got in the way of playing golf. Work, family, more work. I’m not exactly sure why I stopped golfing regularly. I’d play in charity outings for work or with my father, and hit buckets of balls at the range now and then, mostly to blow off steam.

But my interest in the game waned after my 2001 open-heart surgery, and before you knew it, the clubs were relegated from the trunk to a corner of the garage and then down the stairs to collect dust in the basement.

And that was that.

Over the years, Rebecca and I played in Florida and courses around Michigan, including annual trips to Riverwood Resort in Mount Pleasant. It was more of a social thing, with my energy spent less on low scores and more on the 19^th hole. Even after retiring in 2013 I didn’t play as much as I thought I would.

Fast forward to late 2017 when I was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation and a leaky mitral valve. I’m thinking that summer was the last time I actually golfed – likely in a charity outing that lasted five or six endless hours – about four years ago. Makes me think I really wasn’t so “asymptomatic” after all.

Fatigue can make you stop doing the things you once loved. I know this because in May 2018, I underwent a mitral valve repair and maze procedure to prevent A-fib. No golfing the rest of that year because I couldn’t swing without pain in my right shoulder and ribs from the thoracotomy incision. Took quite a while to heal and regain my flexibility.

As luck would have it, 2019 brought better health for me, but Rebecca had her left knee replaced and was out of commission for several months recuperating and in physical therapy. For some reason, we never started playing golf again.

Then, 2020. A global pandemic and COVID-19 lockdown. Another entire year of no golf for us.

And here we are already halfway through this year on the first day of summer.

Maybe we’ll go to the driving range and see just how bad we are. Might as well give it the old college try. Our clubs are out of the basement and back in the garage, all clean and ready to be put in the trunk.

We’re playing Wednesday morning. Only 9 holes. No expectations, no worries, no overthinking. Have fun, and remember the good shots.

Just “pause and pose,” as our golfer pal Sparky always says.

That’s a good start for any old bag, including this one.