Golf

Golf should be called fetch-it. The Scots invented this first hide and seek game that included a modicum of exercise. One stands in a box (tee box) and whacks a tiny white ball with a stick, then the hitter must go and fetch-it. After discovery of the smitten, one must then smite it again until it is smitten into a hole some yards in the distance. After completing this exercise 17 more times, one is finished with a “round” and can retire for the day (it almost takes that long to play).

I just returned from a vacation wherein I played four rounds of fetch-it over three days (or at least that was my intention). My father joined me in this binge down in Southern Utah at some of the most beautiful fetch-it courses we have in the state. I have heard that to know my father is to know the present writer times 10. I am not sure what that means, but I can assure you it can mean nothing good.

The first day of fetch-it began at 6 am when the progenitor and I got up, showered and made our way to the first fetch-it course to join others from Northern Utah who had made the journey to this Southern Utah fetch-it heaven. All geared up, we proceeded to hit and fetch the tiny white ball for the next 4 or so hours. We played this first fetch-it course down by the polygamist stronghold of Colorado City. It was a very difficult course in which we experienced (at least my progenitor and I) the fetch-it player’s nightmare of losing the tiny white ball on the very first whack. I now know why this course was so close to the polygamists’ enclave. They are the only ones who could play fetch-it there, because the tiny white ball could only be found by employing the polygamists’ particular assets (multiple wives and multitudinous brood sent out in search of the elusive tiny white ball).

Having completed our first adventure in pioneering through the first course (I say pioneering, because it was more about blazing a trail through the desert in search of the tiny white ball), we ate a hurried lunch and found our way to the next fetch-it course to play another “round” of fetch-it. I have failed to mention that Southern Utah was very sunny and our post winter bodies were not prepared for the cooking they were to receive (that includes the progenitor and I who, although hailing from native American stock, got cooked like the Christmas goose).

Needless to say, although I am going to say it, we ended the day with a negative count of tiny white balls and a quite impressive positive count of what fetch-it enthusiasts call “strokes.” If I was worried about what the fetch-iters call a handicap, I would be mortified. However, I was just glad to not have experienced a real stroke. We ended our day at Outback Steakhouse and, as a real man, all came out well with a chunk of meat on my platter and the typical banter of men around the table lying about our fetch-iting.

I can’t recall much of the subsequent days of fetch-it, except to say the progenitor started the next round, but never finished; and in our final day of fetch-it, all we could muster was a trip to the course to look at it. Perhaps the progenitor and I have reached a boiling point of sorts. My 57 years combined with his 77 added up to the longing of more youthful eyes, in a time far far away, when an intended four rounds of fetch-it in three days would have been a joy. We were, at least, glad to be with one another, enjoying each others’ company and getting all our money’s worth of fetch-it.

We’re planning to do it again next year. And golf really should be called “fetch-it.”