Where do you get your ideas?

One of the ways you know you have no choice but to become a writer is that everything seems like a good story idea (see numbers 6 and 15 in my list of 15 Ways You Know You Were Born to Write). Ideas bombard you from the moment you wake up until the moment you go to bed, and usually during the night, too. So it isn’t really that you’re trying to find ideas; it’s more a case of trying to identify the good ones among those that ultimately have no legs. 

There are two areas I write about whose potential material is virtually endless: parenting and golf. They’re equally rich for the same reasons: Both are as exhilarating as they are challenging, and I’m constantly trying to become better at them. (As a dad, I’d say I’m at least average. In golf, I suck enormously.) Golf is a wonderful topic on many levels. There’s the personal camaraderie. The athletic demand. The connection with nature. The number of times you have to remind yourself that snapping a 3-wood in half is not going to calm you down. It’s a game with endless nuance and subtlety, one in which almost anyone can play poorly, or, sometimes, less poorly.

How long have you played golf?

As I discuss in my book Slices: Observations from the Wrong Side of the Fairway, I began playing at the age of 14. At the time my friends and I needed every possible way to occupy ourselves so our raging hormones wouldn’t send us hurtling off into space. We already played baseball, hockey, football and every other typical sport. This was at a time when golf was decidedly not cool, unless you counted Craig Stadler as a nice wall pin-up. Only one of my high school peers joined the golf team; we thought he was a complete dork. These days, if you’re 14 and you can hit it long and straight, you have to beat the girls back from your locker.

I didn’t take lessons. I simply tried to mimic the golfers I’d occasionally flipped past on TV. Results were mixed. I won the second of my usual foursome’s self-governed grand slam that year (appropriately named “The Deuxième”) in a putting playoff after both I and my friend Dave shot 76’s on our home course, a 9-hole weed farm called Unionville Golf Course whose plastic-wrapped-and-microwaved cheeseburgers probably should have killed us but somehow didn’t. Overall I felt I had potential, much the same way someone who gets a strike in 5-pin bowling feels a 300 game is right around the corner.

Since then my game has worsened steadily. Today I’d describe myself as a golfer whose swing resembles a snake gone haywire. I can claim only one advantage over almost every golfer I play with: I never cheat.


What’s your best club?

Over the years I’ve been most consistent – that is, least inconsistent – with my 6- and 9-irons. Drivers give me plenty of trouble. So do fairway woods. And mid-to-low irons. Putting can be a hassle, too.


Who’s your favorite golfer of all time?

Dow Finsterwald Sr. – winner of the ’58 PGA Championship, one of golf’s best for over a decade, a humble champion and a true gentleman. See my story on him in Slices. (Let’s see, that’s two Slices plugs. My publisher says I need to include three. Just a heads-up.) Coming in a close second is Ty Webb.


What do you love about golf?

It’s distinct from other sports in so many ways. It’s the only sport in which slow is good. The only major sport in which one isn’t reacting to others. The only sport in which a fox trotting across the field counts as a delightful surprise. The only sport that originated with two Scotsman arguing over who could knock a rock into a hole with his walking stick first – although I think Ultimate Fighting may trace its roots to that, too.


What are your most frequent swing thoughts?

1.  Head down
2.  Let the club do the work
3.  Rotate the wrists
4.  God, I hate this game


What’s the best course you’ve ever played?

Tough to single out just one, so here are my favorite three: Mid Ocean in Bermuda, Playa Paraiso in Mexico and Jay Peak in Vermont.


Do you write only humor?

No. I also write regular instructional pieces for Golf Illustrated and Golf Canada. For these articles I collaborate with various golf pros on specific topics. The pros tend to have deep knowledge about the game but poor grammar. I have impeccable grammar but couldn’t break 100 if my life depended on it. So it all works out nicely.


How many lessons does it take to become a good golfer?

It takes lots of lessons and tons of practice. Having ice for blood helps, too.


What golf shots aggravate you most?

1.  A great drive followed by a duffed fairway wood.

2.  The wimpy chip from just off the green. You know the one.

3.  The tee shot that makes your playing partners say “That’s gone” a millisecond after you hit it.

4.  The solid iron that bounces directly into a hidden brook. The worst thing about this shot is the way your playing partners go through the motions of helping you look for the ball as you hope against hope that it will turn up, which of course it never does.

5.  A great shot after a penalty stroke. You get no satisfaction from it. It only makes you angrier that you gave away the one before.


What makes a good golf course?

First and foremost, cheerful people in the clubhouse. Second, well-maintained greens. Third, clean washrooms. Fourth, course marshals who aren’t auditioning to be Nazis.