Living on a golf course has always appealed to me. Sitting on my patio
in a padded chair enjoying the vistas: green grass and trees.
An unobstructed view of the sky and clouds, especially
the large puffy ones slowly passing by taking the form of animals.

Golfers though are less appealing. They stream past my backyard
in little white carts, their bags of clubs hanging on the back.
You can hear the golfer chatter. “What’s this, three-hundred yards?”
“Nice Jack, you’ve got to be happy with that!” “Shit, sliced it.”

I sit quietly and watch as they bend over, carefully balancing the tiny white ball on the tee.
Occasionally it rolls off. Sometimes they swing and miss. Always they jiggle their hips
and take three or four practice swings. I’m not sure if that helps their game or
is just a nervous habit like quarterbacks stomping their right foot before the snap.

I face the tees for the seventh hole. I can see the flag in the distance. Having
observed these golfers for some time now, I would suppose it’s a par three. The golfers
who appear somewhat accomplished seem to get on the green with two strokes. Most
are not so accomplished at golf though they do curse with great confidence.

There are six sets of tees, each sitting atop a grassy knoll at increasingly impossible
distances from the flag. Each tee is color coded, a spectrum of six colors.
The tees closest to the hole were once known as ladies tees, in modern times
the better term may be beginners tees. Who wants that? They are rarely used.

The middle sets of tees seem to attract the most golfers. They play a safe distance from the dreaded beginner’s tees and for many are a full stroke in front of the most difficult tees. I see it often. A younger golfer, with swagger, walks to the professional tees and drives
his first shot nearly to the beginner tees, showing impotence to casual observers like me.

Then there’s the human element of watching these aspiring athletes each day. The lady who stepped from her cart, lifted her driver from the bag then tripped over the rope protecting
the grassy tee knoll from careless cart drivers. “Damn rope!”, “Are you okay honey, I don’t know why they put ropes out here?” I do. I can see the rope clearly from a hundred feet away.

For the most part I just sit and enjoy the scenery, the golfers are a part of that. Without them the view would be static, with only the movement of trees in the wind. They add color and are often colorful making their comments. Sometimes they wave, but mostly I’m invisible to them
as they search the distance for the tiny white ball which will not be found lying near the hole.