It's All Uphill from Here

Indian Lakes Golf Course, Boise, ID
May 18, 2007, 57 (par 35) +22

Golfing at Indian Lakes Golf Course is unlike any course you will ever play—in a bad way.

Well-manicured greens give way to shoddy, bumpy carpet. Soft sand traps are replaced by mushroom-infested wastelands. Deep rough is deep weeds. In a nutshell, the course is an unkempt city park with tee boxes and ball washers.

Ideally, this would play right into my hands, and after one hole, it looked like it would do just that. I tend to golf better on the courses that are not so, how can I put this, playable. My game is out of the realm of normal golf, and it tends to fit well on courses that are abnormally poor. The first hole was a perfect example.

My drive was a low, leaning rocket that started well left and came back well into the middle of the fairway. It was my best slice of the day. I followed that up with a pitching wedge into the rough several yards in front of me and chased that with a grounder onto the back of the green. Putting from 10 feet away, I slid my ball to the lip of the cup where it hung for a second, contemplated the virtues of giving me my first par in recent memory, and fell to the bottom with a decisive and fulfilling plop. Par.

I was, for one hole, for 325 yards, for 8 minutes, a scratch golfer.

The opening par could have been a good sign of things to come, but it was actually the high point of my evening.

For all the bad things that this course had going for it, the worst might have been its trees.

For the next eight holes, I felt like I was in that scene from Lord of the Rings where the trees are alive and talking and going to war to save Middle Earth, only here they were going to war to against my Titleist 2 and whoever was filming it was not going to make millions at the box office.

At various times I was hitting through trees, over trees and around trees. Even when I was on the green, I could see the trees huddling behind me, plotting some sort of nefarious deed to put me deeper over par.

On the par 5 fifth, I had delusions of grandeur that I might be able to hit my Perfect club from the adjoining fairway (where my original drive happily traveled) onto the green and three putt for my second par of the day. It was delusional to think so because I have never been able to hit my Perfect club any better than my 12 other imperfect ones, and I simply do not have the space or the vocabulary to explain here the reasons why.

Nevertheless, I struck the Perfect club perfectly and sent a screamer right toward the green. I also sent said screamer right toward a pine tree 30 yards in front of me. Tree and ball collided with a loud thwack, and I stuffed my Perfect club into my bag with a loud “doggone it.”

Later on the sixth, I saved a wayward drive with a five iron back toward my rightful fairway. Upon walking up to my ball, I saw it was sitting squarely in front of a wide-trunked pine that I swear did not exist until that very moment. With the fear of God and the fear of my ball ricocheting off of the tree and into any number of exposed body parts not least of which being my face, I swung hard with eyes wide shut. Fortunately I mishit it, and it bounced off the side of the tree a few feet into the rough.

I gained revenge, however, on the next hole when by fate or chance or my own poor accuracy I was in front of yet another tree. Faced with the option of going over or around, I did the manly thing and snatched my pitching wedge out of its bag. One fell swoop later, and my ball was soaring over the top of the tree, smirking as it flew (or maybe that was me smirking; I can’t remember). Granted, it landed 15 feet away on the other side, 50 yards short of the green, but it sure did feel good.

With my scorecard rapidly getting out of hand, I thanked daylight savings time that the sun was slowly going down. I went 7, 8, 10 on three straight holes, wiping away any false hope that I was a good golfer after my opening par.

Still, I had one hole to redeem myself as we walked up to the ninth. My drive did not hook, slice, or embarrass, but it did make its way a much shorter distance than I expected. Well back in the fairway, I slammed a five iron high and far and smack dab onto the middle of the green! No tree could touch it; no sprinkler could spoil it. With one shot I had erased eight holes of miserable lies, weak greens and stubborn flora. My blow was a blow for all golfers who had ever seen a good start spoiled. My five iron looked that course in the eyes and said, “Give me back this guy’s dignity and his $15.00! I’ll take things from here!” And it did.

Of course, I three-putted from 15 feet for a bogey.

The trees and sand trap mushrooms found it pretty funny.

SCORECARD:
Driving: Not bad when parking the truck is my worst driving of the night
Irons: One long five iron makes 10 weak ones look better
Short game: My pitching wedge failed me in ways I never thought an inanimate object would
Putting: The hidden weight to my 250-pound scorecard
Lost balls: 1
Overall: I’ll be boycotting Arbor Day for the foreseeable future.