I, like Tiger, started golf when I was young

Where I grew up in Southern Idaho, we had one golf course. I think the only folks who played on it were out-of-towners. Farmers don't golf, and in my hometown you were one, were married to one, or acted like one.

Golf scores weren't shared at gatherings. If a guy said "yeseree, I shot an 8 yesterday," he wasn't talking about the number of strokes over par he was. He was referring to the number of points on the antlers of the buck lying in the back of his pickup.

If a guy said "I'm gonna buy me a new driver," he wasn't talking about a new club. He was referring to hiring a new guy to haul his potatoes.

Even though I'd never seen my dad play, one summer my brother and I happened upon his old set of clubs in the garage. We didn't know what the heck they were. So naturally, we lugged them out to the garden and started hacking squash.

One zucchini exploded after another. We liked the irons best--their flat edge and sturdy metal head did the most damage. The putter was used on the tomatoes. By days end, we had broke half the golf clubs and moved my family's vegetable inventory from one side of the yard to other.

With that as my background in the sport, I was at a golf scramble last week for work. A few of my co-workers and I are invited to a couple golf tournaments each year. Last year's was a disaster. After 4 or 5 holes I made up some excuse about a dental appointment and got the heck out.

This year, in preparation for another tournament, I went to the driving range the evening before. I brought my wife along to watch the other golfers. While I practiced I had her give me tips based on their swings. "That guy over there has his arm like this," and "I don't think you're supposed to contort your hips like that, no one else is."

Of the 50 balls I hit, 10 of them skipped out a few yards in front of me. The other 40 soared a good 250 yards, but they sliced over the driving range's fence and into the public park on my right. Not kidding.

I had hoped my time at the driving range would prove worthwhile at the tournament. It didn't. I lost an average of one ball per hole. I'd go wander through the rough and find another golfer's ball just outside the fairway, pick it up and tell my team "this one's mine, it was just off target," knowing full well my ball was another 50 yards away. Since we were playing "best ball," nobody ever noticed that I had a different ball on every hole.

However, I did have one shining moment of the day. It came when we had to chip a shot out of some dirt and onto the green. The 3 co-workers on my team all attempted, but had no success. I stepped up and chipped a beautiful shot within a couple feet of the hole. I looked down on the ground on which I stood... I was on garden-like terrain. If only my ball had been a squash, then I probably would have sank it.