The Heart of a Goof

My father’s life for the last thirty-eight years has been intertwined with those of two high-strung, vaguely neurotic women (namely, my mother and me).  This is a man whose feminine side is not the most overt, and who spent a great deal of his youth playing the sports that I would spend a great deal of mine trying to avoid.  Despite this, he does have the unfortunate tendency to be the sole parent on duty when tragedy befalls me, and has learned over the years how to deal effectively with a woe-ridden, snotty female. 

Over twenty years ago, which, now that I think about it, was during my laugh-a-minute adolescence, he took up golf.  It was a smart move made by a very smart man.  If possible, my mother is even less athletically inclined that I am, so there was no chance that either of us would be clamoring to join him on the links.  He had at last found his sanctuary, and every spring he gets a misty look in his eyes when he contemplates the beginning of the season. 

As I stated above, my appreciation of the game is limited.  Occasionally, I have watched televised golf tournaments with my father, but they are not the most riveting of viewing.  So it was with my father in mind that I took up March’s book, which was a collection of Wodehouse golf tales.  To be honest, the first few stories held only slightly more interest than watching a pre-scandal Tiger Woods meandering around yet another rolling green field.  I was struck with the mania that Wodehouse seems to have had for the game.  This is a man who only casually describes the collapse of marriages and breaking of engagements, yet in golf, one finds the alpha and omega of life, the source of true passion.  He may only have been sarcastic about the importance of the game, but somehow, given the number of golf stories that he wrote and the fact that one usually jokes about the things they hold most dear, I don’t think this is the case.  He may have been married to Ethel for years and have been devoted to her, but in golf, at least, he had a favored mistress.

The book, for me, at least, took a dramatic upturn in quality with the last three stories.  They concern a trio involved in a romantic triangle and their adventures over the years.  Golf is only tangentially involved.  For me, a non-golfer, it strikes just the right balance of displaying Wodehouse’s slightly loopy obsession and a good yarn.  I have the feeling that the golfers among us would disagree, and would defend to their death the importance of stories describing the effect of red flannel plus-fours on one’s game.  To them, I can only nod sympathetically, knowing that it is best not to debate a fanatic.