I want to be on a golf trip. Right now. As in today.
Gimme Palm Springs. Gimme Scottsdale. Gimme San Diego.
Gimme a warm breeze and some finely manicured greens. Gimme a pond on Hole 4 that’s home to colourful fish and flamingoes. Gimme a deck on 18 where the burgers are hot and the beer is cold.
Oh, man. Right about now — and let’s face it, we’re in the middle of a month that should be banished from the calendar — the people in the warmer climes are strolling around in Bermuda shorts, some of them in Bermuda.
Right about now, they’re pencilling in on their score cards, fretting only mildly that they’d just narrowly missed a par or lost a ball or two in the trees. Golf in November is all about perspective. Minus the rain and the frost in the morning, a bogey’s not hard to take.
What’s not to love when your only concern’s about sunscreen?
There is this, however: I don’t really golf.
Sure, I own clubs. I own golf shoes and balls and bags of tees. I own dozens of pretty golf shirts and darling shorts to match. I own a bag with compartments for gloves and ball markers and water bottles.
I understand the rules of the game, and the etiquette besides.
But my game is, well, not up to much these days. Make that, it’s not up to anything.
Whatever.
“I want to go on a golf trip,” I informed the husband the other day. “Like this week. I’m thinking Wailea.”
“Oh,” he said. “Maui, huh?”
“Yep,” I said “Or maybe Kihei or Kaanapali. Anywhere on Maui.”
“But,” began the husband.
“OK!” I said. “I know what you’re thinking! My game’s not up to scratch.”
“Actually,” said the husband, “that’s not what I was thinking. When did you last go golfing?”
“OK!” I continued. “So I haven’t golfed this year. Or last. But two or three years ago, I think I went to the range. I’m pretty sure I did.”
The husband nodded.
“Those courses on Maui are pretty tough,” he said.
I considered the observation. As much as I hated to admit it, he had made a point.
Again: whatever. There are, after all, other things to do on Maui. Heck, when people go on golf trips, they also find time to splash in the pool and sip on slushy drinks and hunt down pretty shells.
That, I decided, would make for some mighty fine travel.
I still want to go on a golf trip. Who says I have to golf?
