The swing of Sammy, not Tiger

May 1, 2005

J's World/Jeremiah Bartz

In recreational, adult-league softball you see two types of players.

There's the guy wearing the cleats he's had since high school and with the glove he's used since Little League. And then there's the guy who looks just like a page out of the Sports Authority spring catalogue.

In golf, it's no different.

There's the guy with the $300 pair of golf shoes, a driver more expensive than my entire bag of clubs and a push cart complete with shocks.

And then there's me. A pair of Nikes, Cubs hat and a set of clubs I found on special at Play It Again Sports.

While many of the GQ golfers probably have a much better average than I do, most have their moments where they play just as poorly as I do, but look better doing it.

It reminds me of one of the first scenes in the movie "Tin Cup". Roy "Tin Cup" McAvoy, Kevin Costner's character, is giving Dr. Molly Griswold, Rene Russo's character, her first lesson. Griswold has all these gadgets and contraptions that are supposed to help her with her swing.

"I bet you even have a golf watch," McAvoy said.

"Yeah, I think I got a pretty good one," Griswold said.

A golf watch? Does it keep score? Does it measure wind speed? Does it have a little voice of an automated caddy telling you to pull out the "big dog" or use your wedge to chip it onto the green? Or does it just have two clubs on the face of the watch, one as a minute hand and one as a second hand.

A golf watch may be as unnecessary as shocks on a push cart. For what, the heavy terrain of the Palmer Golf Course? I have a little rule - can't have better shocks on a golf cart than I have on my pickup. Although if I did pay $1,000 for a set of clubs, I would want them to have a comfortable ride.

My friend and golfing buddy Jason, whom I would easily label a GQ golfer, even has a golf marker. Not a marker to put in place of his ball on the green, but a black magic marker specifically for golf. It has golf clubs and a Nike Swoosh on it and everything. Wouldn't a regular magic marker work?

Like golfers with different looks, many golfers take a different approach to the game. Me, I am more interested in the recreation. An afternoon or evening on the course with a few friends is all I usually ask for. But as my approach to the game is different than the average, more competitive golfer, so is the way I play the game.

My problem, as told to me by everyone who has ever seen me play, is I try to incorporate a little too much baseball into golf. Call me the Sammy Sosa of the golfing world. I usually crush the ball or send it squirting down the grass, 50 yards to the right of the fairway. I even line up to the ball, like I am stepping into the batters' box. I set my left foot in the dirt, leave the right pointed a little crooked, grip the club and take a rip at the ball, just like I was trying to put a ball onto Wayland Avenue at Wrigley Field. I'm probably the only golfer who would carry pine tar in his golf bag.

And when I do have success on my drive, my short game kills me. Twice on Friday, in my first golf outing of the year at the Palmer Golf Course, I put the ball on the green in two shots on a Par-3. Four putts later, I am at triple bogie. I thought all of those years playing miniature golf would have paid off.

But every time I go out, I have one moment. There is one shot where I feel like Tiger Woods. On the 15th hole, I sank a 35 foot putt. And I let everyone know about it. I gave the Tiger hand pump and waved my putter around like Chi Chi Rodriquez.

But those are the moments that keep me coming back to the sport. My 35-foot putts or 180-yard drives with a four iron. Those shots make up for all the time I spent searching for lost balls in the woods.

Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz can be seen about once a pay period during the summer on one of the local golf courses, usually searching for his shot in the woods.