Giving In to Golf Peer Pressure

I played in my friend’s charity golf tournament Monday, a cold, wet, and windy day. Aside from the miserable conditions, it was a lot of fun. The foursome I put together for this event featured two people I had never met and three people with whom I had never played a round of golf. We shot a 63 which was quite respectable. I shared a cart with a 67 year old gentleman who was a scratch golfer. For those of you who don’t know what scratch golfer means, it’s the term we mere mortals use to describe golfers who actually know how to play the game, and when they do, they almost always shoot even par. These are also the men and women who the rest of us grumble about under our breath, since they make an extraordinary difficult game look so freaking easy. But, this particular scratch golfer had the added bonus of being a terrific guy, so I had a blast watching the delightful arc of each of his near perfect shots cutting through the sky directly towards the intended target. Great stuff.

After the round, he says to me. I’m only going to give you one piece of advice about your golf game...

Ok, at this point, I’m bracing for anything. I didn’t play particularly well so I deserved any negative evaluation he had in mind. Being a gentleman, he started out by throwing me a few bones...

You have a very athletic swing, you generate a lot of swing speed which is extraordinary for someone who just turned 60. Also, you make very solid contact...

The word but was about to make its presence felt.

But...if you ever hope to improve your scores and start enjoying the game...you’re simply going to have to get some better equipment!!

By giving this bit of advice, my new friend joined a long list of probably 50-75 people who have made the same claim, especially the friend whose tournament we had just played in...Doug Greenwood. Some background...

Nearly thirty years ago, a golf pro friend of mine gave me a set of irons which at that point were probably two or three years old...Titleist DCI’s. They are still in my bag. My putter is over twenty five years old. The newest club I own is my driver which was purchased sometime around the late 90’s. This collection of relics has been a constant source of irritation to Mr. Greenwood, who has never passed on a chance to rag me about them every time we tee it up. He speaks of the profound embarrassment he has to endure every time he is seen playing golf with someone using such inferior and decrepit equipment. My comeback has always been that my out of date clubs haven’t hindered me from whipping him at least half the time! But, the real reason I have never bothered to upgrade is that although I enjoy playing golf...I don’t love playing. Golf clubs are insanely expensive, and the prospect of spending over a thousand bucks on new clubs just seems ridiculous. However, the real reason I have never upgraded is because I know that when I do it will take me a year to adjust to the new technology. The 67 year old scratch golfer intimated as much when he observed that my irons felt like swinging a sledge hammer. Whenever I hold one of these new clubs in my hand they feel like badminton racquets, light as a feather. Horrible.

But my new friend seemed convinced that I would benefit greatly from a set of clubs manufactured in this century. He pressed me on the matter, offering to sell me a set of irons he used last year, just three years old, for a couple hundred bucks! Perhaps this is charity, perhaps he just couldn’t bear the sight of someone playing with golf clubs from back when Reagan was in the White House! Nevertheless, I have finally bowed to the pressure. I am taking him up on his offer. Of course, I’ll have to find a driver and some sort of hybrid fairway metal...and this would probably be a good time to find a replacement for the sand wedge I lost three years ago.

So...everyone gets what they want. Greenwood will no longer be embarrassed, and everyone else I play with will be able to delight in watching me spray golf balls all over the place trying to figure out the new equipment. Instead of shooting in the mid to upper 80’s, I’ll be the guy with the shiny new clubs trying to break a hundred!

A Nation Unto Ourselves

For the past few days I’ve been reading about a dark time, and a nation that lived through a series of events which had convinced most of them that the thousand year history of their great island nation was at its end. They endured a continuous parade of horrible news, defeats, and national humiliations. They were each day subjected to deprivations of every kind, and each night were pounded mercilessly with bombs. Throughout this long nightmare of calamity, their leader had to stand before the House of Commons and listen to his policies being castigated by rival politicians, then defend them against the very same people who had placed their country in such grave peril in the first place. These debates would last for...days. At the end of each, the government would survive a no confidence vote and earn the right to oversee more defeats. Reading about it all 80 years later, it seems so very impossible. How could they have survived without tearing each other apart? It’s one thing to debate the price of bread, or how much unemployment compensation is right and just...but another thing entirely to grapple with your impending national annihilation.

So, this morning I took a few moments to glance through the headlines, since a summation of the nation’s news serves as a sort of snapshot of our times. Here’s what I find...

Sleazy lawyers, porn stars du jour, special prosecutors, ex-FBI directors on book tours, controversial coffee shop videos, two French speaking world leaders having a bromance, bombs falling on Syria, stories of urinating prostitutes, dossiers, alleged Russian collusion, sanctuary cities, tanning beds and goggles....

Meanwhile, unemployment is down, the stock market marches on, and most of us go on our merry way, secure in our private universe of family, friends and fortune. No bombs rain down on us. Most of us aren’t deprived of anything, and despite the daily humiliations which belch forth from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, we get along with our lives. This is either a mark of progress, or a kind of tyranny. The fact that we can prosper in such a void of serious, responsible leadership is either a welcome indicator of the power of the individual to forge his or her own way even in the complexity of this 21st century world...or we have become so insular, so detached from each other, we have all become a nation unto ourselves. But if so, this detachment can only survive when the challenges we face remain petty and inconsequential. This tribalism will fall apart into pieces if ever bombs start to fall...on us.

The Power of Moral Conviction

I find myself suddenly surrounded by brilliant Englishmen...

In the first place, I have recently replaced my morning routine of reading through the Bible in 90 Days with my third reading of Mere Christianity, by the indispensable C.S Lewis. This idea was planted in my head by a friend in my small group who brought up the subject of this transformational work, causing me to pull the volume from my bookcase once again. I seldom read literary works more than once, but there’s something about Lewis that feels fresh and new with each reading. The novelist, John Updike once said, “I read Lewis for comfort and pleasure many years ago, and a glance into this book revives my old admiration.” Does it ever!

In the second place, my son and his fiancée sent me a birthday package a couple of days ago which contained the book on the left, Churchill and Orwell, The Fight For Freedom, by the Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Thomas Ricks. I’m halfway through and depressed to be so since that means it’s halfway over. The flyleaf contains this statement...In the end, Churchill and Orwell proved to be their age’s necessary men. Taken together in Thomas Ricks’s masterful hands, their lives are a beautiful testament to the power of moral conviction, and to the courage it can take to stay true to it, through thick and thin. Reading through this wonderful book, I’ve found that half the time there’s a lump in my throat. I am overcome with admiration and gratitude that these two men existed, Churchill, a man of the right, Orwell a man of the left, who both understood that the real enemy was the totalitarian impulse, no matter it’s origin. When each man began speaking out, both became outcasts, both rejected by their natural allies, and both, oddly enough, nearly killed in the 1930’s. But, they both survived and every man, woman and child alive today is in their debt.

It has caused me to think of my own age...who are our necessary men? Are there any? Who are the indispensable men (and women) who will make the difference? Who will stand against the tide of evil and terror, brave enough to tell us the unvarnished truth about our world, even if it means rejection and repudiation? Depending on your politics, you might have someone in mind. You might even be able to rattle off several names. I see no such man or woman at the moment. Doesn’t mean that he or she doesn’t exist, but as of this writing they remain hidden from me.

Millennials and Minimalism

Much has been made of late about a lifestyle choice popular among millennials called, minimalism. It’s basically the polar opposite of conspicuous consumption, a repudiation of the consumer culture that has grown up in the West over the past 75 years or so. It’s a rejection of the collecting of things for the greater goal of experiences. Instead of buying a traditional house and a nice car, why not live in a tiny house and take the bus, or better yet, ride a bike into work? Then, unencumbered with debt service, you can make that two week trip to Tahiti this summer, or run with the bulls in Pamplona. 

Of course, the decision to go minimalist might not be the morally superior choice of a new enlightened generation. It might be the de facto choice thrust on a generation drowning in college debt, and ill equipped to deal with that economic straight jacket. Be that as it may, when I read stories about how the economic choices being made by millennials are “destroying industries” I laugh out loud at the economic stupidity of such a claim. The choices that each generation makes are just that...choices, and if an industry can’t survive those choices, it will die off. It has always and forever been so. Millennials didn’t invent this. If they aren’t in to buying paper napkins, so what? The big shots in the paper napkin game better figure it out or they will go the way of the horse drawn carriage. Grow a pair!

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah...minimalism. Ok,  I’m not sure these millennials have thought the tiny house thing through. I mean, what happens when they have kids? Suppose their parents want to visit? What does the wife do when her husband visits the bathroom after a night of jambalaya and beans? The practical effects of living in such a small, compact space can have a profound impact on human relationships. The western notion of personal space took centuries to develop, and can’t be so whimsically discarded without consequences. However, it’s my considered opinion that a tiny house is more morally defensible than a McMansion. What’s the deal with the people of my generation and their obsession of building three, four, sometimes five houses in one lifetime, often, building the biggest one after the kids have grown up and moved out?

Pam and I have been married for nearly 34 years. In all of that time we have lived in only three different places. The first year of our marriage we rented a two bedroom apartment. Year two, we moved in to a starter home, a three bedroom house which we occupied for twelve years and into which we introduced our two children. Finally, 21 years ago, we had our present house built, a mere mile up the road from our old one. It has five bedrooms, and a garage, and was a thousand square feet bigger than our old house. That’s it. Three addresses in 34 years. Why haven’t we built something bigger? Why haven’t we moved out into the countryside and thrown up a large estate type place? For that matter, how come my car is ten years old? Why don’t I buy a new one every two or three years like many of my buddies? The honest answer is...I have no idea. I guess it boils down to a simple answer...I like my old house....and...my old car runs great. Or maybe I’m cheap.

My point is, although I don’t buy all of the minimalist shtick, I don’t reject it out of hand either. I think these kids have something to teach the rest of us about priorities, and what exactly makes up the essence of a good life. Maybe a looser grasp on material possessions is an ingredient of that good life?

My Take on the Zuckerberg Show

I was asked yesterday what I thought about the Mark Zuckerberg testimony, specifically what my preferred outcome would be for it all. I had no answer, primarily because I didn’t think I had enough information about so complex a subject to even know what a preferred outcome would be. Since I was able to watch an hour of his testimony while on a treadmill at the gym, I am now an expert and can answer without hesitation. Here’s my takeaway...

1. It was pretty darned funny watching a bunch of 70-80 year olds asking Mark Zuckerberg about the Facebook. How many of them have ever spent two seconds on Facebook? Zero.

2. Ironically, the people who are making the most fun of the senator’s ignorance about social media are the same folks who want these same senators to craft regulations of social media. What could possibly go wrong?

3. As I watched each senator take their turn with the Z-man I couldn’t help but think...every single Democrat Senator on this committee has received large campaign contributions from either Zuckerman himself or Facebook...and every single Republican Senator on this committee probably owns Facebook stock!

4. I’m told that Zuckerberg spent hours and hours prepping for his appearance before the senators. He needn’t have bothered. In the hour that I was watching, I never heard a single tough question, and rarely an intelligent one. Nobody laid a glove on him. Maybe it will be different on day two, but I doubt it. See #3 above.

5. While I am open to some sort of reasonable regulation, I am also aware that one of the reasons that the internet has so exploded as a medium is precisely because of the lack of the sort of stifling regulations that most other industries are burdened with...the type of regulation that results in the pages and pages of disclaimers and weasel language found in most terms of service agreements. It was hilarious yesterday when Lindsey Graham held up the ridiculously long printout of Facebook’s terms of service while calling for government regulation of Facebook. What, in God’s name does senator Graham think produced that long printout?? Ha!

6. The biggest factor that has contributed to Facebook’s troubles is the fact that they have a virtual monopoly. They bought what was shaping up to be their biggest competitor (Instagram). Like many insanely rich and unchallenged Masters of the Universe types, the naked pursuit of riches has dwarfed all other concerns for Mr. Zuckerberg and others like him.

7. Color me cynical, but my trick knee tells me if the clever manipulation and exploitation of Facebook and other social media had resulted in the election of Hillary Clinton instead of Donald Trump, I’m pretty sure that Mark Zuckerberg would have spent yesterday bumming around the office in Menlo Park in his jeans and T-shirt.

So, what would be my desired outcome in this mess? One thing that leaps to mind would be a more concise, readable and understandable terms of service agreement for Facebook users, along with a requirement to opt in to allow companies access to personal info instead of having to opt out. Other than that, I’m not sure what else wouldn’t be worse than the disease. Allowing the government to become censor of content sounds like a horrible idea to me, not to mention vaguely Chinese.

That’s about the extent of my knowledge of and interest in the travails of social media titans.

My Most Embarassing Moment. Ever.

Several months ago, in this space, I posted a picture of my office chair and asked the question...Is it my imagination, or is this chair leaning to the left? In the months since, it’s port side tilt has become even more pronounced, to the point where the question no longer has to be asked. My office chair most definitely has...much like Silicon Valley...a left-leaning problem. Well, yesterday morning, which was my first day back in the office after a week at the beach, my issues with the chair became the source of perhaps the single most embarrassing moment in my 36 year in business.

Luckily, one of my cooler clients, who has a better than average sense of humor, was on the other side of the desk from me when it happened. I can think of a couple dozen clients who would have been horrified by what unfolded at approximately 9:15 am Monday morning, April 9th, in the year of our Lord, 2018. One minute I was sitting securely at my desk in my formerly reliable, if poorly aligned chair, busily filling out some paperwork. Suddenly, I needed something that was sitting on the credenza behind me and to my left. As I have done at least a thousand times before, in one graceful and practiced move, I swiveled to my left and attempted to scoot myself, along with my chair, on it’s spinning wheels towards the stack of papers that required my attention. Only, something went very, very wrong.

What follows seemed to happen in slow motion, just like in the movies. There was an instant of clear recognition where I was acutely aware of what was about to befall me, yet, there wasn’t one single solitary thing I could do about it. At that point I was in the inescapable grip of gravity. There was nothing left to do but brace for impact, and the damage which might be done to my body, but would most definitely be done to my ego. For, somewhere underneath me, a wheel of my accursed chair got hung up on something, impeding forward progress below. Unfortunately, above...momentum had already worked its magic, and since I was leaning in the same direction as the aforementioned tilt, the results were predictable. I could feel myself reaching the point of no return. I remember thinking...I think I’m going to flip over in this chair...

In what seemed like thirty seconds, but only probably took a fraction of that, I found myself flat on my backside, legs pointed skyward, my chair freakishly sprawled out in an unnatural configuration. The kind expression for this condition is head over heels. Me being me, I prefer the less elegant, but much more descriptive phrase...ass over teakettle. My client rose to his feet, asking, Are you Ok?? I bounced up quickly, trying vainly to pretend nothing had happened. My client then made the sterling observation of the hour...Doug, I think you probably ought to replace that chair.

As of this hour, a brand new Serta executive chair has been purchased. When I told my assistant this story, instead of tender concern for my well being, all I got was a burst of hysterical laughter. Later, when I shared my story with my wife, I got stifled giggles, complete with uncontrollable body shaking. In other words, no sympathy, no kind-hearted empathetic understanding of my profound embarrassment...just belly laughs. Not that I can blame them. Although it was no fun as a participant, I imagine it must have been quite hilarious to witness from a safe distance.

So, I thought I might as well share my humiliation with the world...

Watching The Masters

Although my enthusiasm level for the game of golf has waned quite a bit over the past two decades, one thing has been constant...I still watch The Masters. Actually, there are still three golf tournaments that I care to watch on television, the British Open, the United States Open, and The Masters. But, if I were only allowed one of the three, it would always be...The Masters. The reasons for this are many, not the least of which being the fact that Augusta National is perhaps the most stunningly beautiful real estate in the entire world...

Secondly, I had the privilege to attend a Saturday round in 2004, the year of Phil Mickelson’s first victory. I arrived at 8:00 am and walked the entire course...twice, not leaving until dusk. It was possibly my happiest day as a human being on this earth. I drank beer from a green plastic cup. I ate several pimento cheese sandwiches wrapped in green paper. I spent a small fortune in the gift shop. I spent a glorious hour in the stands between the 15th green and the 16th tee box. I stood, three patrons from the ropes on the 18th green as Mickelson hit his chip to within two feet of the flagstick. I couldn’t have been more than 15 feet from the man. It was sublime.

I say all of this because of a minor kerfuffle which has sprung up overnight between the members of Augusta National and the manufacturers of Bud Lite. The old rich men who run the club are a famously unfunny bunch when it comes to golf etiquette and patron deportment. I recall vividly seeing the Bobby Jones rules of patron behavior close to the entrance back in 2004. The rules were specific and unyielding. There would be no running, no celebratory cheering for poor shots, and absolutely, positively no cell phones and cameras. Violators would be greeted by swift punishment which would include not only immediately dismissal from the property, but a lifetime ban from ever returning. If I ever doubted them, I didn’t after witnessing a poor slob pull out his cell phone to take a call as we walked across the 9th fairway. He hadn’t been on his phone thirty seconds before a yellow-jacketed official interrupted his conversation with a stern rebuke and an escort to the front gate!

So, apparently, the Masters rule makers had issued a warning that any patron heard yelling the newly ascendant Bud Lite catchphrase, Dilly Dilly...would be dealt with harshly. The marketing gurus at Bud Lite, sensing an opportunity, quickly issued this very funny reply...

Although I come down firmly on the side of the old rich dudes that run Augusta National on this one, I have to admit that the Bud Lite people earned major props for their hilarious response!!

I’m no absolutist when it comes to this sort of thing. I personally think that golfers can be a temperamental, sanctimonious bunch of whiners. Allowing fans to heckle them seems totally reasonable to me...most of the time. But people...this is The Masters we’re talking about. This is the tournament started by the venerable Bobby Freaking Jones. He won major championships wearing cuff-linked dress shirts and a bow tie, for crying out loud. That’s back when people had manners! If the Masters people want to attempt to inforce traditional 19th century manners on a crowd of 21st century barbarians, then I say, more power to them. So, at least this week, there will be no You da man, or Get in the hole screams from drunk fans. No one will be allowed to squeal with delight whenever Rory Mcllroy hooks his tee shot into the pines. There will be no chants of USA!! USA!! if Patrick Reed birdies the 12th. This is The Masters, where golfers and patrons alike will be expected to behave like its 1918 again.

Not such a bad thing, in my humble opinion.