Greatness Courts Failure

Please tell me how a man who over many, many years chronicled the development and ultimate decline of the state he loves, waited 32 years to once again take up golf when nearly every square inch of Florida has been turned into a single 22,500 hole, 90,000 par golf course? Doesn’t the state require you to grab a club on your way out of the door – just in case? I could perhaps see dropping golf as an act of defiance against the overdevelopment but when it’s a sport you actually appreciate and have fond memories of playing with your father, 32 years seems quite a bit of time to just not getting around to it. I start to become cranky and nigh on intolerable if I go a week without playing!

But thankfully, Carl Hiaasen did once again take up golf and kept a year and a half long journal of his – for lack of a better word – adventure. Or, maybe there is a better word – misadventure. If you haven’t had the chance to read this yet, please do. If you can’t afford the $15 because last week’s Nassau left you $50 shy, try the library. Or, better yet, snag it from the backseat of that son of a bitch who sank the 30 footer on 18 that left you picking up the tab last Saturday. That’ll teach him to order those Heinekens and potato skins while you sipped your fifty-cent can of Busch and nibbled on a roasted peanut.

Hiaasen pretty much attacks golf head-on as only someone with unlimited time and a decent pile of cash can do, quickly ramping up from mild duffer to full blown addict in seconds flat. Remember the fun house mirrors at the boardwalk or fair that showed a distorted but funny view of yourself? Well, Downhill Lie is kind of like that because you’ll laugh at Hiaasen’s on again off again love affair with drivers and putters, balls and equipment, his struggles to break ninety, and his mishaps driving a golf cart. But, after you put the book down, you’ll realize that it wasn’t a funhouse mirror you were looking at, it was a flat mirror and what you were laughing at all along was yourself.

We’ll rate this one a full sleeve of balls. Many golf books are ponderous and most golf biographies and autobiographies require the patience of Job or the disposition of a masochist. Hiaasen’s humor and ability to laugh at himself in his vain pursuit of golf perfection makes us laugh right along.

It’s our ultimate destination and our Waterloo. The green - that smooth surface that tells your ball it will soon be home.  You try and make it in regulation, you get up and down on it, you fly through it, you roll off of it, and it’s just so damn pretty and inviting and so freakin’ large you don’t know how you could have missed it. It’s called the carpet, the dance floor, downtown. It’s got valleys, jaws, and elephant burial grounds. It snakes and waggles. You yank on it, you four-jack on it, you let it slide, you leave it in the grips or roll it too long to a watery grave. Sometimes getting there is like sex with your sister, you did the deed but not proud about how you got there. Or you pulled an O.J. Simpson - you somehow got away with it even though it was a Salman Rushdie, an impossible read. Golf’s a colorful sport with colorful slang but the only color we care about is green.

I’m sure you caught this year’s Open Championship (that’s the  British Open to you and me). Who can forget those tense, agony-of-boredom moments watching professional golfers stare at their ball on the green, waiting for the wind to subside enough so they could putt without incurring a penalty stroke. I don’t know about you but I was on pins and needles. Yawn. Apparently, the pros could use a divinity lesson or two. The smart golfer knows to give a nod to Shu when the wind picks up and sends your balls thither and yon across the fairways and greens. Shu is the Egyptian god of air, one of the primordial gods, and is considered a calming influence. A brief prayer to Shu could have turned those gales into mere breezes and injected a little more actual golf into Saturday’s TV coverage.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Take it easy there a minute. They didn’t have a 16 times platinum album because they sucked (1994’s Cracked Rear View). And their so-called sophomore slump, Fairweather Johnson, was 4 times platinum. The Hootie backlash was just typical American consumer knee jerk jealousy. People root for the underdog but can’t wait to take down the mighty. Maybe they became too successful too fast and radio stations overplayed their hits but the tunes were catchy, well crafted sing-alongs with only good intentions. Good, honest, adult contemporary light rock. Heck, we’re not ashamed to turn up the Hootie and chill out with a cold Schlitz on the nearly completed deck here at GCF.

And it’s good intentions that Hootie and the Blowfish continue to exhibit even today. They turned out a few more solid albums which stayed true to their sound (they have officially stopped recording and touring so Darius Rucker could pursue his solo career), but mostly they dedicate their time and tunes to extensive charity work ­– most notably and of concern to us here at GCF is their annual Monday After the Masters Celebrity Pro-Am Golf Tournament benefitting numerous local and national golf and education charities and their own charitable foundation. It’s one of the top charity golf events in the country and raises nearly $500,000 a year. And, in case you enjoy the obvious, it falls on the Monday following the Masters.

There’s no denying the guys love golf. They’re all decent players and low handicappers and they’re from South Carolina (second only to Florida as a golfing mecca) where the courses are plentiful, beautiful, and challenging and the weather allows play thirteen months out of the year. (Heck, we love South Carolina so much it’s even home to the clandestine world headquarters of Greatness Courts Failure!) Mark Bryan, Hootie’s guitarist, even has a show on the Golf Channel, Road Trip: Myrtle Beach, where he travels to courses in and around Myrtle Beach with Josh Kelley, another singer/songwriter, Charley Rymer and Perry Swenson. They play challenges, sample the local food, and close the show with a song or two. Good, honest entertainment – just like Hootie and the Blowfish. Give them another try. I know you own the album, everybody does. If it makes you feel better, you can just play it in the truck by yourself. But don’t think I won’t see you singing along and no, I won’t hold your hand.

Consider the chicken wing. I know, they’re freakin’ everywhere now with untold numbers of restaurant chains devoted to flavoring them one-hundred ways to Sunday. I bet they even breed the damn things these days purely for their wing size. A whole warehouse full of birds with ginormous wings looking like an anemic 12 year-old with a body builder’s arms. But, before the mid 1980’s, chicken wings were tossed aside or sold for mere pennies a pound, useless as the neck and backbone, unless you made your own chicken stock. One of the first restaurants in the Southeast to take advantage of this overlooked delicacy (I know, it’s a stretch) and homogenize America with yet another franchise was Hooters.

Now, I’ve had better chicken wings than Hooters serves but there’s one thing they offer that none of the other wing restaurants have. It’s the one reason we frequently stop by for a post-round bite and a few beers, or just a few more beers and the PGA on the big screen - it’s their support of the NGA Hooter’s Tour! Wait, you thought maybe it was the atmosphere? Or maybe the friendly, attentive, attractive, and most importantly, barely clothed waitresses (no, they don’t hire waiters)? Heck no! As dedicated golfers and golf fans, we support those who support golf!

And that’s the lie we tell our significant other every month as she (or he – we ain’t sexist or homophobic – a golfer is a golfer and equal and mere mortal in the eyes of the golf gods) tallies up the receipts, frowns at the excessive tips, and pays the credit card bill with nary a word. So what’s another night on the couch? You go to sleep to the warm, enveloping glow of the Golf Channel with a fuzzy feeling in your heart for helping support a great American institution that encourages and provides exposure to struggling young golfers looking for that big break. You’re a freakin’ saint.