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I have to write this ode to golf now, though it may not appeal to many. For the uninitiated this may provide an incentive to start playing the game or at least know about it. Golf is less accessible to all and sundry than, say, soccer or cricket. Golf is a lifelong pursuit that connects us to one another and can have deep meaning in our lives.
They say Golf is a game “fast catching up with Indians”. Some of us know that this game has caught up with a lot of us decades back. Those familiar with this game may recall mats and engine oil that drove the game in grassless cantonments. For the uninitiated, the engine oil was not used to propel the ball. It was mixed with sand, ferried from far away river beds, and evenly spread over a flat surface usually round in shape; somewhere in this brown area was a 4-inch diameter hole dug into the ground, into which the golf ball is required to be hit / putted. These days there are many near proper golf courses in most cantonments and all class A cities in India.
Be that it may, you may wonder what has golf to do with your heart. A heart of golf is the best heart ever. On reflection we find that a ‘heart of gold’ in reality will be inanimate and hence devoid of any feelings which would be very uncharacteristic for a good heart. A big heart is something which is
difficult to hide and soon will become a small heart with dwindling resources. A heart of golf, on the other hand, is forever and always throbbing with varying emotions. If you know a person’s golf you know his heart or vice versa. To understand this, you will have you take a walk with a keen golfer on his round of nineteen holes, no less.
I will take you through a round of golf with a keen golfer. Golf courses are very ecofriendly places. In there you will find a lot of grass (manicured and wild), woods and glens, waterways, sand (like in the beaches) and a lot of undergrowth sometimes with snakes slithering about. A lucky golfer in a rare moment of brilliance, will find himself on a fairly open grassy area evenly cut and stretching a fair way known as fairway. But to most golfers intending on pursuing the perpetually errant ball, a round of golf will resemble a walk through a rainforest. To some it will be like a walk on the beach (with a lot of time spent in sand traps known as bunkers). Maybe to the same person it will be varied experiences on different days. All this within a walk of about seven thousand meters measured tee to hole. Actually, most golfers will zigzag their way from tee to hole and the total distance covered at the end of a round is more likely to be close to 10000 meters.
In that space of 10000 meters, a golfer experiences myriad emotions – from joy, despair, despondency, loss, elation, ecstasy and much more. The cardiologist will tell you that varying emotions are better for the heart than a monotonous feeling. All these emotions will come naturally to a golfer on the course during a game, without involving another person including your playing partner or opponent.
Then there is that part of the game on the nineteenth hole – which is nothing but the familiar bar, the watering hole. That is where all the fun is. Of the hundred odd strokes taken in the round the only one talked about will be the five-footer putt on the sixth for the only par score for a hole, you would have had in the round. That is enough to raise your spirits (and the spirits) and pump up your heart. So, if you have a heart of golf, you got it.
Why do golfers live longer!
It is no fancy stuff
This about golf
As you walk the course
With the grass you discourse
Feeling light as in the buff
Time does not intrude
A golfer’s interlude
While he is on fairways
Drinking in the Sun rays
With an attitude
Time on the course is not deducted
From life’s time allotted
So, the golfer lives longer
And grows ever stronger
To be again (and again) resurrected
Col KL Viswanathan
(The author is an Indian Army veteran and a contemporary affairs commentator. The views are personal. He can be reached at kl.viswanathan@gmail.com )
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.