Sentenced to a 14 to 15-handicap...

Hello,

You are reading this because you are bored and even worse an average golfer.

My story. I had some clubs as a kid but thought all the guys I knew who played golf in high shools were a bunch of stiffs in sweater vests. They went to college at places like Furman and aspired to play college golf. My greatest shot where I caddied once, Rolling Hills County Club in Wilton, Conn., was playing on caddy day and seeing a squirrel 40 yards away from me. I threw a golfball at it, nailed it on the head in one bounce and it was last seen twitching its way back into the woods. (I do feel badly, and I became an animal lover after the incident.)

Fast forward to the Northgate Golf Course outside of Reno about 11 years ago. I am about to play in a tournament against some fellow private investigators. Many of these guys are so fat they can barely get out of their Cadillacs. They were so fat that when they sat around the house, they sat around the house. They had more chins than a Chinese phone book. When they wore corduroy pants and walked, their thighs set off forest fires. I can't lose to these piles of goo. But lose I did. Ever since that day in the windswept parking lot I have been hooked on golf.

I like the game but can do without the pomp and nonsense that surrounds it. The worst are the hushed and reverential tones that TV saves for the tournaments. And now that we know Tiger likes to get his freak on like any pro baller why should these guys get special treatment.

I am about to turn 45 and bought new Mizuno Irons and a new Calloway Driver. I tend to shoot under 90 more than over 80. I love the Bay Area golf courses.

This blog will be about my rants and raves. My golf partners. My fist-pumping celebrations when I win $6 off the aging poetry professor, etc. My wife tunes out when I ramble on about golf so you will have to cope. Until next time, "Hit 'em straight."