The Golf Gods


Yes, every golfer knows about the Golf Gods.  When you hit a screaming hook into the dense woods, it is the Golf Gods that decide whether to swallow the ball so it is never found, or to spit it back out into the middle of the fairway.  I have never read this in a golf magazine, but I know it is not wise to anger the Golf Gods.

Golf is such a wonderful game.  It doesn’t matter whether you are a scratch golfer or have never gotten under 100, you can have a good game or a bad game.  It is a game where you are constantly learning.  It truly is one of the puzzles of life.  If, however, you should mention to a friend or your spouse those unforgivable words, “I think I’ve got it,” the Golf Gods will swoop down and crush you.  They will have you questioning everything from your grip to your follow through.

That is my present dilemma.  I am playing well.  I play every Thursday in the Northern Virginia Retired Members’ league.  And, for the last four weeks my scores have been great (for me).  My scores are lower and my handicap has dropped three points.  That means the Golf Gods have me in their sights.  I am high on their victim’s list.  Just writing that I am playing well may have inflamed them.

You can always get advice from those you play with.  I have learned that after hitting a bad shot, never, never ask, “What did I do wrong?”   One fellow will say, “You’re standing too close to the ball after you hit it.”  Yuk, yuk.  Another will say, “You’re swinging way too hard.”  Wait a minute.  Wasn’t that the guy who told me last week, “Just grip it and rip it.”  If I wasn’t watching and someone asks me, I would say, “Your head came up.”  You don’t have to watch to know that.  The Golf Gods love for you to ask, “What did I do wrong?”  That’s part of the slippery slope.

What about reading golf magazines?  I’ve read those magazines like they were the bible.  I’ve cut out articles and put them in files – putting, short game, sand shots, more powerful drives, strategy and probably most important, a file on golf exercises.  I don’t think they have helped me.  Many times they conflict with each other.  I read one article on putting that said that on long putts, don’t look at the ball, look at the hole.  I tried it, but I didn’t hit the ball solidly.  I wonder how that happened?

Putting is such an important part of the game.  I always keep track of the number of putts.  A couple of weeks back, I had 41!  Two per hole is 36.  Get the picture?  When your first putt goes twelve feet past the cup and you realize for the first time that it was a downhill putt, it’s time to regroup.  I also can guarantee that your next putt will not get to the hole.

A TV commentator, a while back, said that Tiger Woods never hits a putt off line.  I was amazed.  That means that every time he misses a putt, he didn’t hit it hard enough or he misread it.  When I make a long putt, I usually accept the fact that I misread the putt just enough to compensate for hitting the ball off line.  Poor Tiger never gets that compensation.  Of course, the Golf Gods are trying to set you up when you make one of those long curving putts.  It doesn’t work on me.  I know it was just dumb luck.  Blind hog, etc.

I love the game and all its challenges.  You have to accept that things will go wrong.  Last Thursday, I was playing a par five at Mount Vernon Country Club.  After two shots, I had 150 yards to the green.  There was a substantial pond between me and the green.  I was also in the light rough and had a downhill lie.  I decided to choke down on my seven wood and move the ball back in my stance.  So far, sounds pretty good.  I factored everything in.  Then, I hit my ball over the pond, but not by enough to clear the stone retaining wall.  My ball swims with the fishes.

This Spring, I was playing on the golf course at Fort McPherson.  This was part of the RAJA (Retired Army Judge Advocates) meeting.  We always play golf.  My partner was Allan Toomey.  On the first or second hole, I hit my ball into a small creek that ran parallel to the fairway.  I could see the ball, but I couldn’t reach it.  I asked Allan if he had a ball retriever.  He said, “I’m having it regripped.”

Insurance for the Military (One of the Bennies)


I have written a couple of blogs recently on our indoor waterfall and the trauma surrounding water damage through the house.  I now report that it is done.  We may never be back to normal, but the house is.

The final anxious episode was dealing with the insurance company.  You’ve all heard the horror stories.  Well, in our case, it turned out to be a pleasant experience.  I notified Armed Forces Insurance that we had paid out a little over $30,000 in bills and forwarded the receipts.  We received notification from Jeanne Priddy, Senior Staff Adjuster, the next day that they were paying for everything (less the $500 deductible).  The check arrived shortly thereafter.  It is really a pleasure dealing with insurance companies dedicated to assisting the military.

Between Armed Forces Insurance (AFI) and United States Automobile Association (USAA), military personnel have great insurance available to them.  I have my house and personal property with AFI and our cars with USAA.  Granted, I don’t have a gecko working for me or a goofy woman named Flo, but when I’m in trouble, AFI and USAA are definitely on my side.

I think this is only the second claim we have filed with AFI.  Previously, back in the Seventies, we had two ceramic elephants (BUFEs -pronounced boofies) stolen off our front porch in Charlottesville, Virginia.  By driving to the pottery “plant” in Vietnam with my boss, Joe Conboy, we were able to pick up BUFEs for practically nothing.  After they were stolen, Carole took some pictures of the BUFEs to the local department store and got a quote on replacement costs.  We made so much money on the stolen BUFEs that we seriously considered putting two more out on the porch.

My first experience with USAA was when I was assigned to Goeppingen, Germany in 1966.  I am reasonably certain that our 64′ Chevy Impala Super Sport (bright yellow with black interior) had rough handling at the Bremerhaven port (like it was dropped).  On the ride home, I found a tire bubble that indicated to me that the tire had been pinched during a short drop.  Then, on my first trip to Nuernberg, while driving down a cobblestone road, my rear window shattered.  What a mess.

I notified a Mr. Schwartz, with USAA in Heidelberg.  I told him I was driving to Stuttgart to the Opel dealer to get my window replaced.  He told me I probably wouldn’t have much luck and when I got tired of trying to find my rear window in Germany to notify him.  He said he would find it and ship it to a local auto repair shop.  I tried for three weeks, then contacted Mr. Schwartz.  My replacement glass was flown in from Denmark.  I doubt whether any other auto insurance company would even have an agent in Germany.

What did I do with no rear window?  No problem.  The Army solves all their problem with green tape!  We cut a piece of clear plastic and slapped it on with green tape.  The Army used green tape for every conceivable purpose.  It would stick to almost anything.  There was only one problem with my car.  When I took the green tape off, it took the yellow paint pigment with it.  Powerful stuff.  I had a pale white strip around my rear window.

On my second tour in Germany, we were on vacation and I was driving the entire family from Munich to the Neuschwanstein Castle.  I hit some black ice and ran into a tree.  The car was totaled.  We all survived and USAA paid us for the car.  A good samaritan German assisted in getting us back to Munich.  No Neuschwanstein, no vacation.  That’s not covered in the insurance policy.

When I started working at Arent Fox, I had to park in the garage under our building.  Driving around support posts was not my strength.  I kept scraping the side of my car. USAA kept putting new doors on my car.  As you would expect, my insurance rate went up, but they never deserted me.  I wonder if some of the cheapo insurance companies would have put up with me.  I’ll never know, cause I ain’t switchen.

We have an expression, “The Army takes care of their own.”  But, if the Army can’t, there’s a good chance that military insurance will cover it nicely.
 

Winning Isn’t Everything (Unless You’re in Mortal Combat)


When I was a little kid, I couldn’t stand to lose.  If losing was inevitable, I would take my bat and ball and go home.  Crying all the way.  By the time I got to high school, I didn’t cry as much, but I was still a fanatic about winning.  I believed if you treated winning as a life or death struggle, you would seldom lose.  I still believe there is a modicum of truth in that statement.

In high school, I played basketball with the same intensity as I played football.  An albino kid from up state was trying to go by me on a fast break.  I tried to plant a block.  But as he slipped by me, I slipped my hip into him.  My attitude was, if you don’t know how to fall, you have no business on the floor.  Well, he didn’t know how to fall and we had to delay the game until he woke up.  By the time he woke up, I was on the bench.  It was the only time my dad ever told me that what I had done was bad.  I was stunned.  My best supporter.  It was bad enough being booed by my home town crowd.

Today, I still try to win.  I want to win very much, but I try to do it without making an ass out of myself.  This is quite an improvement over high school.

When I was appointed as Chief Counsel at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), I discovered that we had a softball team.  The Chief Counsel’s Office would play against other NHTSA teams, Rulemaking or Plans and Policy or Research and Development.  The second game I played, I almost got in a fight with one of the players from Plans and Policy.  We made up the next day, but I felt terrible.  Here I was, a high level government official and acting like a jerk.

I had a meeting the next afternoon with all my teammates (they all worked for me).  I told them I had some good news and some bad news.  I told them the good news was that as people got older, they relaxed and were not as intense as they were when they were young.  The bad news was that I had already passed through that stage and what they saw yesterday was the more relaxed, less intense guy.  Some of them shuddered.

I apologized and told them it wouldn’t happen again.  My new mantra was, if you can keep from getting hurt and not show your ass, then, by all means, win.  I have had good luck with this new approach.

Now days, in some leagues for younger kids, they don’t keep score.  Of course, the little kids do keep score.  They just have to figure it out in their heads.  Who are these characters who have decided its bad to keep score.  I don’t believe losing teams will be scarred for life.  I’ll bet the people who decided not to keep score lost a lot of games when they were kids.

Vince Lombardi wanted his team to win, and they usually did.  But somehow it has become politically incorrect to say the most important thing for this team to do is to win.  Everyone knows it is important.  Coaches get fired when their teams don’t win.

Coaches now say, “I just want my boys to go out and have fun.”  Go out and have fun?  How do you go out and have fun?  If you get your butt kicked, is that fun?  What if you outplay the other team, but they get all the breaks and beat you?  Is that fun?  Can you think of any scenario where you lose the game, but you have fun?  I’ll tell you what I think.  I think “having fun” is a code word for “winning.”

Picture this.  A team just lost a heart breaker, but some of the guys are joking around in the locker room.  Having fun!  The coach comes in and says, “What’s going on?”  The players say, “Coach, we’re just having fun.”  Then the coach says, “Of course, what was I thinking?  Please have some fun.  Don’t mind me.  I’m just going into my office and cut my wrists.”