"but that's church... this is golf"

I had my first travel-to-a-tournament experience last weekend and all I can say is when you take a chartered bus with about forty golfers, their coaches and houseparents the most interesting phenomenom occurs. Given the fact that there were only about ten girls in the whole group there was (are you sitting down?) a line outside the mens room. Amazing. The weekend was yet another fascinating glance into the daily lives of the golfingly gifted, but there was one moment that I'm still processing.

The first day of the tournament I was working hard, sitting on the porch of the clubhouse, talking to the coaches while the kids were comming in. I've finally learned that unless they shot a 64, the kids are usually not happy with their scores. Golfers are brooders... at least in public. They don't throw things or yell, they just walk by you silently and when you ask them how their day was they look up at you from under their hats and mumble, "don't ask" and go to get their lunch. You let them text their coaches/ family/ significant others, let them listen to their ipod, shower, and basically let the world fall back into it's proper perspective and then they start analyzing every hole, every possible shot they should have taken, could have taken, which iron they should have used... Well, you get the idea.

Given the intense emotions you see when kids are exiting the greens, it wasn't all that surprising when a girl who looked to be in high school walked by in tears, followed by her mom. The coaches all gave each other the "what's up with girls and emotions...?" look and continued to rehash the entire script of "Caddyshack" to each other. Then one of their students approached the coaches table and explained why there had been tears. "We got disqualified," she explained in her broken English (she appeared to have an oriental background, it made her explanation all the more endearing). "We played the wrong balls and didn't realize it until the next hole". Their coaches nodded soberly, asking "you mean you didn't mark you ball? Well, you need to be sure to do that... that's what happens when you don't pay attention. Don't close out the hole, go back and play it again".

When the little girl left they explained the particular rule to me-- that if you play the wrong ball, even if it's by accident, if you don't remedy the sitation immediatly by starting the hole again, you get "Dairy Queened..." (disqualified... get it? "D.Q.'d?"). I had to ask the question that I'm sure you're wondering too. "But guys..." I began. "I feel terrible suggesting this, but I mean, no one's out there watching them... Wouldn't it be better to just not tell the officials? No one would know!" "You can't do that. That's cheating, breaking the rules. It doesn't matter if no one sees, it wouldn't be right". As you can imagine, the catechetical implications of this conversation were making my brain explode... I'm not proposing that golfers are the pinnacle of ethics and virtue, but I was stunned that young girls would demonstrate such integrity and wanted to know how in the world this is instilled in kids. I said to the coaches, increduously, "how do you do this? I've had kids standing in Church, holding a Bible lie to my face about something I saw them do not seconds earlier... How do you do this?"

The coaches all just shrugged and gave what was, to them, the most obvious answer in the world "But Alison," they explaiend with great simplicity, "that's just Church. This is golf".

jack and crown

The Golf School which is made up of about thirty or so very driven, serious athletes who go to bed by their midnight curfew (many have already been asleep by the time we make our final rounds to check) and are swinging away by 7:45 a.m. at the latest the next day (again, many have already been at it for a while) is housed at the the new campus of an undisclosed state school which, since it’s opening three years ago, has wasted no time in becoming a major party destination for local underage youth, in and out of college. I find it amusing that when I’ve completed curfew check is when the rest of the campus comes alive. On weekends their curfew extends to 1:00 a.m. so it allows for their paths to cross a little more and we get to witness culture clashes like the one I just experienced. I was outside talking to some of the guys about a half hour before curfew. A young girl, Jamie, stumbles towards us and exclaims, “Hi! I like to meet new people”. Clearly inebriated, she continued, “we’ve been wanting to meet you all but you’re never here… You’re never outside”. “No, they’re always outside” I think… “Just not outside where you’d meet them!”. Jamie continues, “So you guys are like, really strict right. I heard you have breathalyzers”. She’s mostly talking to me and all the guys are clearly unsure of what they’re supposed to say so I decide to have fun. “sure do” I reply. Jamie contines, “I heard you gotta get tested every night!” “Sure do.” I reply. “Every night. I’m honestly afraid to use mouthwash…” “Well,” Jamie continues, wrapping her arm around my waist, “You need to f--- your curfew tonight and come on over to my dorm. Third floor. We got jack and crown”. “Really?” I asked. “Jack and Crown? Wow…” (Expensive tastes… I think. Who can afford that in college? Must be the beginning of the semester or something.) “SHH!” She exclaims. “You don’t want no one to hear, we’ll get in trouble”. “Ooh.” I reply, knowingly. “We don’t want that”. At this point my golfers are all laughing into their visors. (yeah, they wear visors at midnight…) She says, “c’mon, let’s go!” and tries to drag me upstairs. I assure her I’ll be there soon. Poor thing, she was shmiested. She stumbled away to continue her weekend revelry and I turn to the teen golf squad and say, “So, yeah, I’m checking the party after your curfew tonight…. Don’t even”. Did really? No. Although isn’t it great to be mistaken for a college student almost four years after you graduate? Even if it is in the dark… through jack and crown-blurred vision…

Irons and Quesadillas

I remember learning about “paradigms” from Joe Schmiesing at FUS… That a paradigm is how we view the world, and everyone has a different paradigm based on their background and experiences. I had my first glimpse into a “golf paradigm” when I had Scott, Natalie, C.J. and Ari in the apartment . I had made some refried beans and quesadillas and had offered some to Ari. The boys loitering in the hallway smelled the food so I invited them in to join us. This being their first week, the boys have definitely not mastered cooking and Scott commented that the quesadillas were really good (and judging from the fact that the boy’s fridge contained nothing but about twenty different ways to freeze a pizza: from pizza wrappers to hot pockets, I don’t think he had much to compare it to). I told the group that quesadillas were easy, and if they ended up in a dorm room without a stove, they could always make them with an iron (you just put it between wax paper so the cheese doesn’t get on your shirt). Scott looked really confused and finally said, “how do you make these with a golf club?” I didn’t even realize what he was talking about and his friends were like, “no man, the iron you use on your clothes”. I suddenly realized why he was confused so I tried to explain, “yeah, you know… the thing you use to get those creases in your popped collars”. Scott still looked confused. This does not bode well for our future communication. We’re speaking English, but somehow not the same language!