Golfers wear masks as they walk up the fairway at Torrey Pines.
Photo: mike blake/Reuters
America is reopening its golf courses, which raises a thorny question: Should you play golf amid such serious times?
Of course you shouldn’t. You should never play golf, period. Golf is a terrible, horrible sport—a cruel ritual in which otherwise reasonable humans shell out hard-earned money for hours of misery while being forced to dress like employees at a CNBC company retreat. If you own a set of clubs, you should take them and fling them into the nearest body of water.
Golf has shattered my soul too many times. Lessons didn’t help. Neither did practice. When states began banning golf during coronavirus lockdowns, I thought: good, great, humanity is finally rid of that wretched, entitled sport, I hope they never bring it back.
And yet, when New York state recently reopened many of its courses, I immediately revised my opinion: Ooooh, yes. Absolutely. I need to go play golf. If you have ever played golf, you know exactly what I mean. It is a maddening compulsion, a diabolical trick, agony disguised as fun.
My golfing companion today is my son, who is 7 years old, and has never played a round. The poor kid is marooned at home taking “virtual” school—virtual math, virtual reading, virtual phonics, virtual paying attention. It’s the absolute pits. He has more homework in quarantine than I had in college. There is no way his life can get any more psychologically tormented, so it isn’t a big deal to add golf to the mix.
We’ve paid for nine holes at an easygoing public track, nothing fancy—if you read this column, you know I am not country club material. But golf loves rules, and given the current situation, there are more rules. There’s no entering the pro shop. There are no carts—no pull carts, either. Players must keep socially distanced, 6 feet minimum, and you’re not supposed to touch the pins on the greens. I’ve brought bandannas as face coverings. It makes me look like a preppy cowboy off to rob a Vineyard Vines.
I can’t help but feel weird about the whole endeavor. This is all completely on the up-and-up—New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo lifted the prohibition on golf in late April—but this activity hardly feels essential. Of course, that iced coffee I ordered at the bakery the other day wasn’t exactly essential, either. It is such a surreal, conflicted time in the country—governments are opening states, eager to re-energize the economy, as grave warnings persist and agonizing numbers keep ticking up...
WHOOOOOOOOOOSH!
The kid is on the tee at No. 1, swinging like he’s Reggie Jackson trying to yank one out of Yankee Stadium in ’77. His body dramatically twists and flops over. It’s a full, dramatic miss.
Try again, I say, helpfully. Yes: I’m a real Harvey Penick.
WHOOOOOOOOOOSH!
WHOOOOOOOOOOSH!
WHOOOOOOOOOOSH!
We’re now 0-for-4, and the ball hasn’t even wobbled on the tee. I’ll say this: the kid is definitely related to me. And this is probably good—better to have him grow frustrated and bail now, avoid a lifetime of pain. We can quit and try something easier, like high-altitude mountain climbing.
THWWAAAAACK.
Contact! At least a solid 40 feet of it, right down the middle. Now the kid is charging off the tee box and down the fairway, excited. “Come on!” he says.
Uh-oh. I recognize what’s going on here: He thinks golf is a good time. This kid is in for a rude awakening.
A sign directs golfers at a practice green at a golf course in the state of Washington.
Photo: david ryder/ReutersBut this is why golfers are so happy to get out there again, why they’re celebrating the course re-openings across the country. It’s why they’ve been flipping out in my home state of Massachusetts, where, until Thursday, golf remained temporarily banned, along with sales of recreational marijuana.
Folks, Tom Brady and Gronk are gone. Opening day at Fenway Park passed without the crack of a bat. If you can’t smoke weed or play golf, I don’t really know what the point of Massachusetts is anymore.
I have to admit: these modified rules may be good. I like that we’re walking and carrying our own gear—I’ve brought just a handful of sticks, which is all you really need. I like keeping the pins in, it moves the game along, and who am I kidding, I should never putt, anyway. Golf proves to be naturally socially distant, especially if you’re like me, and always spraying it into the trees. Golf may be merciless, it may be out of touch, and it is too often a sport of privilege, but it could be a sport for this moment.
The kid is rolling. It’s 48 degrees out, and it’s been raining for the past half-hour, giving the round a nice Scottish flair, but he’s still barging around like Ballesteros, thrilled. Everything is new. Everything enlivens him. He’s the opposite of frustrated. He thinks it’s hilarious when he swings and misses. He thinks it’s even more hilarious when I swing and miss. He thinks it’s fantastic when I dunk one into a sand bunker, which I do more than once. (There are no rakes by the bunkers, another tweak of the time.)
He’s not fazed at all by our troubles. He just thinks he’s outside playing with his dad.
Then I realize: the clubs I’m carrying, they belonged to my father. The kid barely got to know his grandfather before he died, but if he had, he’d have probably played golf with him. He’d have known that his grandfather viewed golf as an amusing riddle, something that never got truly solved. He enjoyed those flashes of success amid all the exasperating struggle. Mostly he enjoyed being outdoors.
Late in the round, the kid sinks a long putt. He yells out, I pump my fist, and I imagine somewhere, Grandpa pumps his fist, too. This is what it’s all about, isn’t it? I hate golf, but I love it, too. I’m glad it’s back. So am I.
Share Your Thoughts
What do you think about states easing restrictions and allowing golf to be played? Join the discussion.
Write to Jason Gay at Jason.Gay@wsj.com
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