Now we're talking. Now, at long last, there's something sensible happening to the game of golf.
Now, just perhaps, the golf mates and I will do what we haven't done for a good long time. We'll stop talking about the game, and actually make a tee time, gather the clubs and get in the car and drive.
Our destination will not be a place for dim sum, where it's often been the last long while. This time, we will not tell each other that it's too cold, too hot, too windy or too early or late in the day to hit the fairway, and that our time would be better spent over pork buns and shrimp dumplings and little mugs of steaming tea.
Nope. This time we will execute what we golfers like to call the followthrough.
This, thanks to a stroke of brilliance that hit some bright mind out Langley way. No, it's not to cut the green fees in half. It's to double the size of the holes.
One day a week, to begin with, the holes on the course's greens will not be four inches wide, but eight.
Hello! Talk about a nobrainer! Talk about an obvious way of getting the ball to more easily go where it seldom goes for me! But it's got to be just the beginning, as I see it.
To enhance the game even more, and to better lure folks away from their spring rolls, I'd argue that those sand traps have to go. Fill in the water hazards. Tear down the rough. Relocate the trees to places where golfers tend not to visit. Like forests, say.
Let's dispense with this insanity about 18 holes and arrive at something more reasonable. Like seven, say.
Let's decide that parthree holes will become par sixes, and that par-fives become 12.
Let's revisit the rules that say it's improper to pick up your ball and toss it in the centre of the fairway or that it's unacceptable to take a pass on a hole with an undulating green.
While we're at it, let's get ride of those scorecards. I've never had any use for them at all. In fact, as far as my golf mates and I are concerned, they're just an irritant used primarily to jot down the day and time of our next dim sum, and nothing in the way of a birdie.
As far as I'm concerned, players should be rewarded for finding other people's balls and for replacing their divots and for striking the ball without breaking the tee. Makes utter and perfect sense.
So yes, a golf hole that's eight inches in diameter might be a good place to start, but I say why stop there? If eight is better than four, then 10 is better than eight, and a foot is even better, especially if it's in the middle of a green that slopes down from all sides.
The purists, of course, would argue that all this would be a travesty. The game would be different, no question there. But I'm game to give it a try.
