MY HOLE IN ONENESS

My Hole In One was as real as a dream. Forever, I will remember the stiff, 15 mile an hour North Wind coming into my face, the distance of 133 yards downhill to a front pin, the feel of the rare, inside out swing of my 8 iron, for once finishing like the guy in the PGA Logo. While posing for a picture no one’s taking, I watched a Power Draw carve its way through the sky, bank like an F-16 with a target in its sights, and dive straight to the pin.

Allow me to pause here. Getting a Hole In One is an exercise in herculean patience on the part of all those with whom you are about to come in contact. Those who already have Hole In Ones welcome you to their club, acknowledging with knowing nods that they are willing to listen to your Tolstoy-esque version Of Golf Greatness as long as there is an opening to wax on about their own accidental brush with brilliance. Those who have never felt the thrill of a single stroke, either lean in and listen with bated breath or get up and walk out of the room. I used to be one of the latter. I wasn’t jealous, I had somewhere to be.

To those who genuinely offered their congratulations, thank you. That said, after being asked the inevitable, “What happened?”, I soon realized there is no way to talk about this life changing event without witnessing the slow, toxic disintegration of your Chosen Listener’s Well Intentioned Interest. In an instant, you are akin to the writer who is asked, “What are you writing?” who then, with stunning stupidity, fails to answer in less than five words which is the Internationally Recognized Time Limit a human being has in them before they don’t give a good goddamn. As a playwright, I have witnessed first hand the eyes of friends of mine glazing over as I vainly attempted to lay out the plot of my latest play or coherently make sense of my new song-in-progress. As I’m losing them – and I can see it; they’re gone and they’re not comin’ back – I am not proud to say that in a desperate attempt to reconnect I have acted out scenes featuring multiple characters and, in full voice, sang what I thought was a catchy tune, hoping those standing in front of me would miraculously awaken from a very deep sleep. Now I know how Kreskin did it.

Maybe a picture really is worth a thousand words.