April might be the cruelest month. But December is the loneliest.
The shadows begin running early in the afternoon. Darkness falls early. The beauty of autumn betrays you: November’s playground of pumpkins and colorful leaves gives way to frosty, biting mornings, and soulless, grey skies. There is no lonelier feeling than the silence of winter’s onset, broken only by the crunch of frozen leaves beneath your feet, and an Arctic wind born thousands of miles north cutting through you. There is a stillness to December, a quiet anger. The Christmas trees are a ruse; December smothers.
This is my 40th December. They have been enough to learn that December is the time of year when even my home of Mississippi — as south as south goes in this country — cannot run from winter forever. Cold rains whip the land, soaking the ground into a clammy, sloppy mess. All but the most meticulously maintained golf courses turn soggy and muddy.
And yet, in the choice between cold, wet golf and no golf at all — what choice is there?
On a handful of December days, though, the clouds roll away, and the sun pours down out of a cold but clear blue sky. I’ve played Mossy Oak Golf Club in all types of weather: hot and sunny, and cold and rainy. At its best, Mossy Oak plays firm and wild. But there is something solitary about the place — almost primeval — that cries out for the loneliness of winter. Even playing softer as the damp of December obliges, Mossy Oak feels more at home in the cold. It is a solitary time, in a solitary place — but then, golf is a solitary game. And God knows it has been a solitary year. So on a cold, clear December morning, I threw my clubs in the trunk my car, filled a Yeti travel mug full of dark roast, and began the two-and-a-half hour drive to West Point.
The drive up Highway 25 is not the stuff of inspiration. Neither was my range session. A recent lesson hadn’t sunk into my swing yet; everything was either fat or blocked, and my wedges weren’t nearly precise enough to clip balls off the soft turf. But tee times wait for no man. My opening drive finished short and right of my usual landing area, and my approach missed the green right as well; I gladly fled with a bogey. But when my tee shot on the second hole drifted over the property line, I knew I’d be digging deep into my stash of Titleists before the end of the day.
I remember being excited to turn 30. I’d spent my 20s either in school or living hand-to-mouth — and sometimes both at the same time. My 30s, I assumed, would bring the dignity of adulthood and the affirmation of a perfected skillset. Forget learning new things, I was gonna be grown, damn it. Now, nearly a decade later, I feel like the decade has nothing to show for it. I should know how to get up and down from a bunker. I shouldn’t have to putt from off the green. I should know the elements for federal class certification. I should have more courtroom appearances under my belt. All this godforsaken grey hair ought to have bought me something.
I take lessons. I read hornbooks. I think I’m better than I was 10 years ago — a better lawyer, a better golfer, a better man. But I’m not certain. And the numbers don’t look good.
Mossy Oak’s downhill seventh demands a decision: a creek runs across the landing area at the bottom of a hill, so the player either must crush a driver or lay up. I played a cautious hybrid nearly to the bottom of the hill — then, off the downhill lie, sent my second shot with a 4-wood like a bullet into the side of the creek bed. In golf, as in middle age, sometimes you can know what you’re doing and still screw up. Still other times, you can simply screw up — like at the par-3 ninth, the shortest hole on the course, where I managed to talk myself into underclubbing and dunked my ball into a perfectly avoidable sand trap. I thought I was supposed to be better than all this by now — golf, decision making, life, all of it.
Still, there are moments when experience brushes past something younger — athleticism? — and the two bring forth something that wouldn’t have been possible 10 years ago, and probably won’t be 10 years from now. At the drivable par-4 10th, I crushed my drive over the corner on just the right line, skirting past a tree’s scraggly, leafless branches, and brought the ball to rest on the back edge of the green. On the par-5 17th, my second shot 4-wood came up short, and I bumped a hybrid that ran past the hole; looking at the 25-foot birdie putt, I thought improbably, “Y’know, I think I’ve got about a 50-50 chance of making this.”
On both the 10th and the 17th, I walked away with par. Still, I gave myself a chance. I suppose that’s all you can try for, at any age. Then again, middle age is an unceasing reminder that your chances are half gone, no matter whether you’ve made good on them. How many more eagle putts does my back have left in it? How many more 18-hole walks do my knees have in them? How much more of any of this — any of it — do I have?
Early in the round, I challenged my partner to think of three great things to have happened in 2020. We both got stuck after two. Could the past year have provided a bleaker segue into one’s 40s? Could there be any more terrifying reminder of the fragility of all this than the deaths of 320,000 Americans?
At the 18th, facing a two-foot putt for bogey, I smiled and smashed my putt, hoping to bank it off the pin; the ball shot past the hole like a train through a station. “Was that real?” my partner asked. Not really, I said; I was just trying to have some fun. Halfway through my life, nearly through 2020, I’m still just trying to have some fun. The ball is out of the hole.
. . .
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