Let Golf Play You
Whenever I stress about walking the dog, my fiancé is quick to say, “Well, instead of walking the dog, why don’t you let the dog walk you?” It wasn’t until a rainy round in Southwest Florida this past January did I finally get what she meant.
After a pre-planned round at one of Florida’s finer private clubs was cancelled due to expected bad weather, Mark and I were given the chance instead to explore the Fort Myers area for a new golf experience. There wasn’t any chance a little rain would keep us off the course before we headed back to a Midwest polar vortex. Our search pointed us to Fort Myers Country Club, which is a converted muni and a 1916 Donald Ross layout. In fact, it had boasted a private club roster that included the likes of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison and had that classic vibe many clubs dream about.
We knew it was meant to be when we found a restaurant next door to the course that served pimento cheese soup -- a perfect pre-round meal to get the imagination going and prepare for a friendly match and brisk pace so that we beat the early winter sunset. It was agreed that our mission was a full 18 holes in before dark. Eighteen or bust.
Hole 1-3
First tee shots have already been sent when the starter says, “Hold up fellas, mind waiting for one more to join you?”
Normally, I’d politely point that our tee shots were already away and trod off, but today was somehow different.
Maybe it was the pimento cheese soup still nourishing our souls, but we stopped, nodded at each other, and dropped the pencil bags from our shoulders to wait for our new playing partner to join us.
Enter Wilson.
An epidemiologist for the state of Tennessee who carted up to us with an oversized bag, a brand new driver with the sticker still on the shaft, and the most cringe worthy sight of them all -- iron head covers. This was going to be a long day.
After explaining that he had just purchased his driver and had never hit a ball with it, Wilson probably felt our looks of inconvenience more than we wanted. But he calmly did some proper stretching, tied his shoes, and sorted through his barrel of a bag for gloves, balls, and tees. Once he finally got to the tee, he striped one right up the left center of the fairway. No, you really can’t judge a book by its cover.
Once we were a couple holes in, the conversation started to flow. It turned out that Wilson was on a quick getaway in Florida with his family before heading back to a very new home in Tennessee. He had only picked up golf after his second knee surgery put him on the permanent side line from his more passionate pursuits of track and field and soccer. When I jokingly asked if his accent was from Minnesota, he laughed and replied, “No, a little southeast of there actually -- Kenya.”
Hole 3-6
Because Kenya is a country of 50 million people with only 35 golf courses (ok, Google), we had a hunch Wilson’s story of how he was introduced to the game would be one to re-tell.
His first swing of a golf club was while serving in the U.S. Army stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. He recalled what that first swing felt like: “It was as good a feeling as covering a hurdle in the 200” For him, the golf swing is a competition with himself, to do it better each time.
Wilson picked up the game at the right time, when the brunt of the military and his other sporting achievements were too much for his knees. While finishing up his service, he played every chance he could and crossed many of the Army courses around the country off his list.
Once we told him we lived in Chicago, our stranger status with Wilson would be lost forever.
Chicago was the city he studied to get his masters in epidemiology. He also played a lot of golf at Jackson Park in the afternoons when he finished up his classes at the University of Chicago. I couldn’t help but think we missed each other by just a few hours when I played the same track before work with co-workers on weekdays in the summer.
Hole 7-9
For someone who learned the game later in life, Wilson sure made the game look fun. He is just the kind of athlete who “figured it out” much easier than the rest of us. With some God-given hand-eye coordination and serious resourcefulness, Wilson proved himself to be a gamer.
But, it was Wilson’s apparent relationship with the game of golf that we remembered most, it was impossible not to admire. He never got down on himself, never once said a despairing remark about his performance, and never degraded his own capabilities. He had been playing golf for only five years, but had the confidence of Nicklaus and the pleasant demeanor of Crenshaw.
Let it play you
When we teed off we were on a mission to play 18 holes before dark. Five holes in with our new pal Wilson, that didn’t seem to matter much anymore. The conquest was secondary to the moment, and while we weren’t playing slowly, we were no longer in a rush or thinking about our flight back to Chiberia the next day. We focused in on the holes we had in front of us and the person walking next to us.
When we finished the ninth, the rain started to come down with a little vigor and Wilson started to say his goodbyes. He shook our hands, exchanged info, and headed back to his family vacation.
Mark and I deliberated for just a few seconds and called the day ourselves. Why ruin it? Nine was just fine.
So, we didn’t play all 18 holes of Fort Myers Country Club and we didn’t meet the goal of the morning. But what we did do was much more important. We made a friend named Wilson who is now an ambassador of our golf society. In fact, he might make it to our pilgrimage to Sweetens Cove for The Spring Meeting in April.
My fiancé, right as usual, taught me the lesson well. Let the dog walk you, or in other words, let golf play you, let life live you. Because... isn’t that what it does anyway?