How well I remember my father, a jovial long-legged athletic sort, pine away over his golf-game-bucket-list-item.
Dad lusted after, not an occasional birdie or eagle, much less a hole-in-one. His unattainable goal – to shoot his age on the golf course. For the number of total strokes—putts, wedges, drives—to equal the number of years since his birth in 1911 in Topeka, Kansas.
My father’s golf playing time ended just weeks before he died at eighty-eight years of age.
In his book, How to Learn Golf, Harry Hurt III describes golfers who shoot between 80 and 89 as being of “middling proficiency…”
This was not my dad - a middling proficiency golfer.
His golf score never equaled his age.
On a clear sunny day in San Diego yesterday as I headed out for various boring errands—bank, cleaners, grocery store—my first stop had to be the gas station.
I am not a golfer like my father, so I have never fantasized about my age equaling my golf tally.
I was reminded of him when I placed the fuel pump back in the fuel tank after filling my tank.
Never, ever did I imagine a full tank of regular gas would equal my age at this point in my life...
