In a Blue State,
But Not a Dread State
Mental health days are always right on time. But some more than others.
On Tuesday, I took off the day from work to play golf — and to distract myself from the other thing happening on Tuesday. A few hours after I tripled-bogeyed the 18th hole at Dancing Rabbit’s Azaleas course in Neshoba County, Miss., Donald Trump was re-elected president.
Looking toward the next four years, apparently I’ll be taking a lot of mental health days.
Longtime Lying Four readers will recall that the Azaleas is not my favorite golf course. When I realized in late October that golf would be an Election Day imperative, my thoughts sprang toward Mossy Oak in northeast Mississippi or Overton Park in Memphis. But the math just didn’t work: not enough to time to drive up, play, grab a box of chicken on my way out of town, and still get home in time to vote. Dancing Rabbit, a little more than an hour from my house, would have to do. And with my preferred Oaks course on a (relatable) maintenance day, the Azaleas course was my only option.
Once upon a time, the 1997 Tom Fazio design made frequent cameo appearances in lists of America’s top 100 public golf courses. In truth, it only looked like a top 100 golf course: its driving corridors were too narrow, and its bunkering was too penal. But when it came on the scene, those qualities were still in fashion.
The Azaleas course no longer looks like the sparkling, technicolor creation that marketed itself as “the Augusta you can play.” It doesn’t even look like it looked five years ago: it’s scruffier, and much of its more ornamental bunkers have been filled in. If you came here looking for the world as it existed 25 years ago, you would be sorely disappointed.
But on a Tuesday afternoon, with millions of voters preparing to send Trump back to the White House, a funny thing happened at that ill-conceived, unenjoyable design: I enjoyed myself. Dancing Rabbit is no longer its most beautiful version of itself. But somehow, it feels like a truer version of itself today: a layout falling somewhere between above-average and good, with conditioning certainly good enough to get around.
I didn’t have my best day, but it was better than I feared. After fighting a slice for the first five holes, I began shutting my clubface more consistently and controlling my shots more predictably. By the time I got to the back nine, I’d found another gear and was hitting irons at yardages I hadn’t seen in five years.
On the par-4 third hole — the best of Dancing Rabbit’s 36 — my drive fluttered from left to right, over the hillside dividing the broad-shouldered split fairway, and narrowly held the short grass. I smoked a hybrid for my second shot, but again, the ball leaked and foundered to the right of the green, in grass just deep enough to countenance against putting.
“This is supposed to be a chip,” I told myself, fully aware that I’m even less comfortable with a wedge than J.D. Vance on a public bus. But I swallowed enough of my anxiety to grab my 54-degree wedge, nudge the club back modestly, and gently turn my chest through the shot. The ball nonchalantly hopped a few feet off the ground, bounced on the fringe, and rolled out to within five feet of the hole.
“Huh,” I thought. “That kind of worked out.”
There were rough patches, of course. Golf is nothing if not a constant battle against unexpected disaster. But even on a player’s worst day, every time they walk up to their ball and choose their club, they’ve got a chance again; what is done is done, and the rest of their chances are literally right in front of them. Golf can bring frustration, and even fear — but it never takes away your hope.
Today, I am hopeful — not because I’m optimistic about Trump’s return to power, but in spite of my pessimism. I’m choosing hope because sometimes, a tricky chip works out just how you hoped. I’m hopeful because sometimes a place can still be good, even when it doesn’t look as beautiful as you remember it.
I’m not in denial. It’s not 1997 anymore. America has changed. For reasons I will never understand, tens of millions of our friends and neighbors are comfortable with a fascist who tried to overturn a national election. But tens of millions of others are no less clear-eyed today than they were before news desks called Pennsylvania. Advocates, organizers, leaders (both elected and otherwise), lawyers, volunteers, and innumerable other righteously indignant hellraisers are ready to face this fragile moment.
In golf, as in life, calamitous results cannot be ignored; you have to go find your ball, take stock of the mess in which you find yourself, and figure out how to move forward. And whether it’s pulling off a delicate chip or resisting an authoritarian, moving forward is a lot easier with hope in your bag.
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