What is it about the Game of Golf?

What is it about the game of golf? I was aware of the game at a relatively early age. My father and one of his friends, a retired Chief Petty Officer named Lawrence, started playing when I was in elementary school. Actually Lawrence, who went by the name Chief, played many times a week. He had a very colorful personality and had a wonderful knack for storytelling. He got my father interested in playing. I would see their golf bags and think what a waste of time. The game just never sparked any interest in me to learn to play. I thought it was a game played by old men. But as a child, I wasn’t very athletic to begin with. I was the last child to be picked to play any team-related sports on the playground. Sports just wasn’t my thing! In college I had a good friend who played, but I still regarded the game as an old man’s game. At the time, my impression of golf was that it was boring. If I inadvertently turned to a golf game on TV, I would immediately turn the channel. I just couldn’t understand what would make crowds of people follow multiple men or women around a large golf course, oohing and aahing about putting a small white ball into a hole! But, two years into retirement, I began musing about playing. I heard of this Black female golfing group in my county known as the Queens on the Green. Something about that name piqued my interest, I guess. I considered joining the group but ultimately decided against it. Instead, I asked two of my friends to join me for a golf lesson. I figured if I was going to embarrass myself it should be with good friends and not with a group of women I was meeting for the first time! Going forward from the first lesson, which went pretty well, my desire to play golf was ignited. My desire to learn to play well has captivated my thoughts at least weekly since that first lesson.

One of my friends that joined me for that first lesson introduced me to her son’s former golf coach. From there we took four additional lessons during the summer of 2025. With the assistance of that coach, we bought our first set of golf clubs. At the end of the lessons, I started going to the driving range alone to see if I had learned anything valuable. I quickly learned that my game sucked but that didn’t deter me at all. It seemed to make me just want to get better and in order to do that I had to master the swing of the golf club. It’s like golf is a drug and I now know, for sure, I am addicted!!

The precision and technique needed to strike a small ball, so it flies through the air and lands maybe two hundred yards in front of you is mesmerizing when done well. After six lessons and many afternoons of practicing at the driving range, I still had not come close to perfecting my swing. But I am convinced I will master the game and become an average player. I am dedicated to making that happen. I now understand the game is based heavily on geometry. You must apply concepts like angles, trajectories, and distances to be successful. Well, you have to strike the ball in such a way to ensure these concepts are applied correctly. The loft of a club is a critical factor in determining how high and how far the ball travels. In golf, loft is the angle of the clubface relative to the ground, measured in degrees. A higher loft angle causes the ball to launch higher and travel less distance. While a lower loft angle results in a lower trajectory that covers more distance. Mastering this concept is hard but seeing that golf ball travel high into the air and land two hundred yards out is just electrifying. You want to replicate that strike over and over again. A player, also, has to determine what club is best to use for the shot they have to make. You hit the ball off a tee using the driver for par fours and par fives. Good golfers will hit the ball 180 to 250 plus yards using this club. If I hit the ball out to just over one hundred yards using the driver, I am thrilled. The fairway woods are used for long shots from the fairway or light rough, especially if you can’t reach the green with an iron. The light rough is usually just off the fairway, where the grass is longer than the grass found on the fairway. It is a less severe version of the thick, longer grass found in the normal rough, also located off the fairway. The distance accomplished with these clubs is between 130 to 200 yards. I have only used the fairway clubs minimally. The irons are used to approach shots to the green, or medium-distance shots from the fairway or rough. The distance accomplished when using these is from 20 to 100 yards. The wedges are used for the short shots around the green. They are used for chipping, pitches, or bunker shots to accomplish 20 to 100 yards. There is the pitching wedge used when hitting balls 9 to 100 yards, and the sand wedge used to hit the ball 70 to 90 yards. The sand wedge is good for getting the ball out of the bunker. The putter is used on the green to make fairly short and low-speed strokes. You use it when trying to roll the ball into the hole!

So far I have played two rounds of nine holes of golf and one round of eighteen holes. The first two rounds told me all I needed to know, and that was I needed more lessons. So, I went back to the young man who gave me my first lesson. During the first two rounds I played I was thinking, “Don’t tense up!” Initially, as I swung the golf club, I could hear all of the pointers I had been given during my lessons. Keep your eye on the ball. Keep your arms straight. Bend your knees. I also thought the way to get your ball to go further was to sway the body when swinging the club. Oh, my gosh, with all of that going on in my mind I couldn’t hit the driver much pass seventy-five yards if that! My iron strikes were going maybe 40 to 50 yards!! What a disaster? After the second lesson with my first coach, I played another round of nine holes, and I could see the improvement in my game. I still have a long way to go but I can actually see the improvement!!! 

After five months of lessons and practices, it seems that some of the lessons are starting to gel! During my last nine-hole round, I got in some decent strikes. The ball was traveling further, and the ball was flying higher into the air! That totally excited me. I finally understood it’s not so much about swaying but bending at the hips and rotating the spine to get the golf ball to travel further. I was working to keeping your arms straight in a pendulum shape and not using my hands when striking the ball. Keeping your weight distributed between the balls of your feet and your heels turned out to be pretty important for getting the ball to sail further towards that hole. Keeping my eyes on the ball when striking. Banking that trailing foot into the ground at the toes!!! Keeping the golf head on its heel and pushing down on the swing. All of that goes into hitting the ball correctly. It’s a lot to think about but the more you do it the easier it gets. You stop tensing up because these movements become natural, and the game becomes enjoyable because you are not overthinking it.

It takes time to learn to play golf well. A Citi Bank commercial states that every golf game is different, and every golf course is different, as well. The commercial shows the dimensions of a basketball court, a tennis court, and a volleyball court. These courts are always the same size, but no one golf course is exactly like another one, and after just playing on two different golf courses I can vouch for that. But the first step to playing well is learning to relax.

Another thing that turned me on to golfing was the clothes. Oh, my goodness, during the summer of 2025 I was busy buying all of these cute golf dresses. Before each lesson I made sure my golf apparel was on point. Isn’t that so funny? But maybe that feeds into the expression – Fake it, until you make it!

Anyways, I still have a long way to go. But I am game. As you see the results of a better swing your confidence is built up. I am hopeful that I will soon start to keep score when playing. My group was so bad we just decided to skip scoring and concentrate on improving our swings in order to strike our balls better. But we will be keeping score soon and learning about our handicaps too.

I am wondering if any of my Scottish and Irish ancestors played the game. Through Ancestry, I learned I have Celtic and Gaelic ancestry. Seventeen percent (%) to be exact. Through research I learned that means I have anywhere from 5 to 8 individual ancestors reaching back as far as my great-great-great grandparents that were either Celtic and/or Gaelic. I find all of that fascinating. And, that very well may be why I am now addicted to golf! It’s possibly in the genes!

Hope to see you on the course soon!