Winter Wonderland

The end of the golf season in Canada, though predictable, remains upsetting in the same way one can anticipate Monday but still feels slighted when it arrives. Still, the shift from warm weather to cold brings with it a distinct vitality, for, as anyone living in a variable climate will tell you, one either celebrates the seasons or moves to Florida.

This spirit — defined by the love of getting a snowball in the face — fuels me as I dash up and down the court during my weekly game of pick-up basketball. My regular golf partners, Glen, Frank (“Shank” on the links, “Clank” on the hardwood) and Stephen are here, along with two of Frank’s insurance colleagues, forming a game of three-on-three that would make professional basketballers cringe.

Nonetheless, we play to win. Sometimes our competitive fire results in injuries typical of working stiffs who attempt to transform into elite athletes for a few hours each week. Tonight the highlight injury is mine, a result of my brain convincing my body to try a new move while in mid-air. The outcome is a nasty collision with the wall behind the hoop and Stephen exclaiming, “What on Earth was that?” rather than checking to see whether I’m alive.

After the game, pleasurably drained, I head home, my thumbs shamelessly tapping the wheel to Rick Astley. Scanning the scenery, I notice a sign reading MINI-GOLF — YEAR-ROUND. I have a half-hour before Stephanie expects me.

The allure of miniature golf is as strong today as when posters of Samantha Fox obscured every inch of my bedroom wall. Whereas adult courses siphon bits of my self-esteem one tragicomic hole at a time, mini-golf layouts were scenes of frequent triumph for me as a child.

The man at the desk greets me, a puff of steam coming from his mouth. I ask how he manages to maintain an outdoor mini-golf course when winter is wrapping its arms around the entire city.

“I want to make sure people have somewhere to get their fix while waiting for spring. Be conservative at the sixteenth — that windmill’s tougher than it looks. Got a driving range out back, by the way.”

Holding a putter in one hand and a fluorescent orange ball in the other, I’m guided through a door and onto a black mat with three holes. I look up to see a minuscule red-and-white house, beautifully painted, twin tunnels cut through its base. The rest of the course gleams as though hand-crafted hours before.

Somehow the air is warm here; as I retrieve my ball from the first hole after taking a two (okay, three — Bobby Jones couldn’t have made that one-footer with the ball sitting against the corner), I remove my hat, scarf and gloves. Though in the distance a blanket of fresh snow is visible, the course itself seems to exist in perpetual July.

Positioning my ball on the mat at the sixteenth, with its menacing windmill, I step back to assess the situation. I’m carding 31 — one over — including two aces and three bogeys.

“Take a good look,” says a voice. I look up to see a different man, sporting bloused knickers and a beige Tam O’Shanter. “This hole can make or break the round.” His pronunciation of round as “rrrayind” suggests he is either Scottish or has been hypnotised into thinking he is.

“Hi. Have you been playing behind me?”

“I haven’t played for a long time. Now I just watch.”

“Watch?”

“For talent. Like yours. That swing is raw, but there’s magic in it. I’d like to see you take some bigger cuts. Shall we head to the range?”

“I can see how you’d be impressed by my mini-golf game,” I tell him, “but I’m afraid it doesn’t quite translate.” “Perhaps I could be the judge of that.” The driving range seems plucked from a fairy tale, its yardage signs glittering white against the darkness, its landing areas bottom-lit, emitting a soft glow. The man in the Tam O’Shanter hands me a 5-iron. Only after hitting the ball straight 160 yards do I notice the temperature here is as balmy as it was on the mini-golf course. “How is it kept so warm?” I ask, removing my coat.

“Let’s not worry about that. I believe you’re ready.”

The man snaps his fingers. Suddenly, I am no longer standing at the inexplicably climate-controlled range but between two tee boxes at a course I’ve never seen.

“May the best man win,” says a nasal voice. I look down to see a hand extended, then up to see it’s attached to Tiger Woods. I accept his handshake with the same expression one might have watching a supernova.

“Or woman,” says another voice. Babe Didrikson Zaharias grins slyly at Tiger, then winks at me. “You know the only thing tougher than a tiger? A tigress.” She starts warming up, her swing as fluid as a windmill. My jaw drops. “Isn’t she —”

“Ineligible? Technically, yes,” says Tiger, “but they granted her an exemption. You supported it.”

“Of course. That is one nice swing.”

“She throws a mean javelin, too.”

From behind Tiger appears Mark Twain, in white-on-white. His mustache twitches genially in my direction, then in Babe’s and, finally, Tiger’s. “The aptly named,” he chirps at Tiger, raising his chin.

“Mr. Twain?” I say. “What about golf being a good walk spoiled and all that?” “I desired to see what all the commotion is about. If it must be on the golf course, then on the golf course it must be.”

A microphone is thrust in my face and a man with a toupee like a flattened gerbil says, “I’m here with the reigning king of golf, I.J. Schecter. I.J., by now the story of your endless hours at the range even in mid-winter is well known. Can you tell us whether it’s also true that you originally polished your stroke on mini-golf courses?”

“Wherever it was,” Tiger says, leaning in, “it worked. He really came out of nowhere.”

“Quite,” says Twain, arching an eyebrow.

“What’s your plan today?” the reporter asks Tiger.

“Well, there are three of us and one of him, so I’m hoping we can grab a few before he gets into one of those grooves.”

“What tournament is this?” I ask. The reporter whirls toward a second camera. “What tournament is this! That kind of ability and a sense of humour to match. I love it!” Twain is eyeing me suspiciously. I want to tell him he’s been dead nearly a century, but I’m too worried he’ll come up with something clever in response. “All right, viewers, we’re just about ready to kick off the first-ever three-on-one skins match. To remind you, I.J. Schecter will take on three competitors at once. If any of their scores are better than his on a given hole, they take the skin. If his score is better than the other three, the skin is his.” “Ladies and gentlemen,” says another voice, “on the tee, I.J.” Thrilled I’ve achieved single-name celebrity status alongside Tiger, Vijay, Sergio and Britney, I push my tee and Top Flite Hot XL into the ground. A lovely calm ripples through me as my fingers settle onto the shaft as though gently grasping my wife’s foot for a massage. In an unbending triangle my arms and hands lift backward; my hips turn as easily as those of a salsa instructor; my wrists hinge, activating a silent button; then it all unleashes, and I feel my muscles working in harmony as never before, a flawlessly calibrated slingshot.

My swing whizzes through like it’s following the edge of a gyroscope, smooth, even, unhurried. I observe the pretty arc of the shot, my pulse as relaxed as if I were watering the lawn. The ball leaps off my club and down the fairway, anxious to see what’s out there. This is a surprise to me, since my drives are usually terrified of fairways.

The match proceeds heavily in my favour, Tiger and Babe unnerved by my shot-making and Twain — though you have to watch what you say around him — nubbing his shots harmlessly forward and saying things like “That ball ought to find better things to do” or “There are those who enjoy golf, and then there are the sane.”

Through seventeen holes, I’ve won all but three skins. The fifth hole, designated an automatic win for the other side if I didn’t ace it (since I’d apparently accomplished the feat twice this year) was a near-miss, my 8-iron landing four inches from the cup. At the tenth, a severe side cramp during my backswing — a result of downing two hot dogs and a Gatorade in three minutes at the turn — allowed Babe to steal one for them with an up-and-down that would make most golfers curl into the fetal position. And, from the gallery on fifteen, Tiger’s wife, the former Ms. Nordegren, flashed me a smile that — I’m sure I didn’t imagine this — was like an invitation to review her course architecture. Spraying the ball left and right, I carded eight, re-focusing in time to eagle the next two holes. The narrow fairway at eighteen requires a precise draw off the tee. Though I can’t remember having hit a draw in my life — not intentionally — today I’ve been executing them with as little difficulty as it takes to breathe. Feeling like I was born with a driver in my hands, I pull back the club, arms and hands maintaining the same wonderful triangle rather than collapsing into the usual trapezoid. My hips slide forward and, as though attached by an invisible string, pull the rest of my body through.

As the club comes sweeping down, I notice, out of the corner of my eye, Mrs. Woods blowing me a kiss. It’s enough to throw me off just slightly; the ball jumps off the heel of my driver, hitting the tee block and ricocheting back toward my forehead. I wonder if Tiger told her to play these head games with me. We all know how much he hates to lo—

“Wake up, Ije.” The voice sounds like Glen’s, though I don’t remember seeing him in the gallery. His features, blurry at first, become clear. “We still have the court for an hour.” He pulls me up from the floor, shoves the basketball into my hands and slaps me on the shoulder. “Brilliant crash, mate. You really taught that wall a lesson.”

An hour later, I’m announcing to Steph both that I’m home and that it still looks as though I’ll never play pro basketball. She plants a warm kiss on my stubble, squeezes my arm and asks how the game was tonight.

“A dream.”

Golf Monthly 

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I.J. Schecter
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© I.J. Schecter 2003