There will be golf

On my father's first birthday,

his father presented him with

a golf club; and today, still,

not far from this desk, his 
classic putter greets me at

my bookshelves. But this is

not the club I mean. I mean

a private golf course created

with friends, to circumvent

their wives' sometimes irri-

tating propensity to strike a

better shot. My grandmother

was a gifted athlete, but that

was not an era ruled by Title

IX, and couples took a dif-

ferent view of discretionary
time.

Indeed, my father grew up in 

a plenitude of settings for

pursuing what clicked as his

lifelong passion - to all

who knew him, his lease on 

this life - and a surprising
space for solitude was pre-
served in his relationships.

This, I get. He would be 99

today, and his swing would

still outclass mine off the

tee. But, I can't presume

to share, so much as merely

to confess to our joy in the

refuge of this game: its won-

derfully fair genius for re-

warding form. It is a prom-

ise he accepted as a boy in

Latin School, and trusted be-

yond every seduction of al-

ternative reward, including

everything offering an anal-

ogy or proof of what counts.

Now, I apprehend an edge of

aloofness in this vivacious

attachment, which is probably

a defect of my own semantics.

He would manifest the beau-

tiful project of being, in

the most insouciant touch I

have ever seen behind an arc

of a radius upon a sphere. Of

many years ago, I have memory

of gaping, with his own peers,

at the mastery of the unnatural

stroke of golf, as the most ob-

vious remedy of the circle. A
filial resignation mixes often
with remembrance of bright fact.

This, too. I regret now to

hear it said, that the most,

as well as the least benefi-

cent dispensations of life

are indifferent to form. Of

course this is the signature

boast of decadent wealth and

vulgar envy, masquerading

these days as Conservatism.

And it is true, Ben Hogan

could have impoverished him-

self without the help of a

Greyhound bus, by simply

living as a man of trust.

He had, therefore, to be

better than those who were

not of belief, even in the
craft of playing well.

For golf, for Horace, for

an English dog, we do not

have to apologise. Against
a gentlemanly way in other
settings, brute authorities 
obtrude. The idea is not to
escape them, but to isolate
them.

In most of his gifts to me, 
like his father's to him,

naïveté was seldom at play.

I think this is ordinary.

When my father, at the age

of 1, inherited a golf club

created in the image of one

aspiration, it was the one

he built into me, without

resistance. On his birthday,

I do not wish to give an im-

pression of summation, for

I renounce the thought. But

from his inner time it would be

unthinkably uncelebratory not

to salvage certain treasure,
which somehow can't help
sounding as if it had tumbled
from an Edwardian picnic ham-
per, like the ripened crenshaw
melon that was his cardinal
stipulation for our breakfast
on this day. But these are not
edicts, just inferences drawn
from observing his game - don't 
mistake an image for the matter;
hold to the form, rehearse it
even when it can't be seen or
heard. Study the lie, but play
the ball. 

And you may indulge yourself
a hug, in front of everyone.

Is that it?