It’s designed to humiliate. Bad golf shots come out of nowhere, especially when there’s someone around to watch. Great athletes try golf and are humbled. There aren’t many transferable skills to or from golf - it is it’s own activity. But my most embarrassing moment on the golf course didn’t come because of one of my shots, though I have perpetrated some of the most heinous shots anyone’s ever seen. No, this came at the Kappa Kappa Gamma spring golf outing about a decade ago, a fundraiser for the group of Ohio State University sorority sisters who mostly didn’t need any more ... full post »

Which is worse? Hitting someone with a golf ball or being hit? I’ve done both in the past and I felt worse after hitting someone. When you get hit, you can play the victim. You can even take it to the limit and try to turn the situation into cash. I’m not saying that there aren’t circumstances in which the person who was hit and injured isn’t tragic, but hey, when you’re on a golf course, you need to be alert to flying projectiles. It’s understood that there is inherent danger when visiting or playing a golf course. Do we really ... full post »

Having been around golf for 30 years, it’s truly amazing I haven’t been hit more than I have. I’ve had shots rain down like hail from a blue sky and barely miss on a number of occasions. I’ve had buddies who got hit while I was playing with them (sometimes by me). But it’s only happened to me twice. Maybe it was foreshadowing when, as an 11-year-old caddie for my dad in one of his company’s league matches, I was hit by his playing partner. I’d walked ahead from the players to forecaddie (reader: insert proper clever literary device here) at a ... full post »

I can’t golf under pressure and that fact, in and of itself, makes me puke in my mouth. Sometimes, I hit shots that can’t be explained. Last year, I hit a tee shot in front of people that I drove straight into the ground with the sole of my new Titleist driver. Then, the ball actually bounced backwards, spun in place like Scooby and Shaggy running from a monster then slowly rolled forward between my feet. At first, I thought someone had rolled a ball there, because I was looking out in the fairway, where I thought my ball had ... full post »

Hank Kuehne and Venus Williams are a couple, or so it’s being said. I haven’t seen them out canoodling or whatever it is that people who are famous do when they’re in public. I’m just putting it out there — does anyone’s radar but mine go up on this? Seems like an odd fit to me, but hey, this is the same guy who dated Paula Abdul before. Kuehne’s one of those guys who captures golf fans’ imaginations because he’s the dude on the range hitting drivers over the retaining net that’s been hung at 300 yards. But he’s had a disappointing ... full post »