Wisconsin Golfer - September/October 2011

Leagues have ended, tournaments have passed and championships have been awarded, mostly to others; as autumn advances, the game is played as much for the sake of it as the score of it because by now we have all awoken from those early-season dreams of purer drives and sweeter irons, of a handicap that would dip each month like the Dow itself.

All that is left is to play.
And that is enough. In autumn, the
golfer and novelist John Updike wrote,
“Everything has dwindled but, perhaps,
our bliss.

autumn is true, we never know which 5-iron will be the last, that stinging punch today through the first flurries of October or that summer-smooth swing tomorrow when the weakening sun has reclaimed its strength. Golfers in Wisconsin, especially those of us who winter here when fairway turf devolves into frozen tundra, must embrace fall golf as a gift wrapped in the brilliant red and golden colors of October maples, as if every round that can still be played as another year heads for the barn is the last gift under the tree, and the next Christmas a long way off.

“The trees are skeletal and silvery, and
ghosts of departed partners flutter at
our sides, yet the game goes on, this
trusty old game of unfailing suspense
and surprise. Like an apple stored in a
chilly barn, golf is all the sweeter on the
edge of winter; each round seems more
precious, in that it may be the last. The
last 5-iron to the well-bunkered 18th, the
last lag putt, the last 2-footer rattling on
the bottom of the cup.”
So keep going, in layers and stocking
caps if need be, with two gloves like that
Tommy Gainey fellow. Play on while
autumn hillsides burn like fire and then
fade to dull rust, while the sky’s bracing
September blue gives way to the gray of
October, while there are still balls in your
bag that demand to be struck. Because
we never know which 5-iron will be the
last, do we? This time of year hope is
fickle, but the golf gods made winter
rules for a reason.