Castles in the Sky

In a perfect world:

• Walking three-and-half-hour rounds on golf courses where cell phones and power carts are banned.
• Courses with irrigation water usage so efficient that golf serves as the model for conservation practices around the world.
• My mother getting a posthumous invitation to join Augusta National Golf Club, with unlimited playing privileges dedicated to the son who plays the most golf.
• Having a place for mental scorecards so I can unerringly remember peoples’ names away from the golf course.
• Seeing the PGA Tour hold a tournament at my rain-saturated course, in the dead of winter, with the entrants playing summer rules.
• Now that I can hit a draw, be able to hit my old fade upon command.
• Hear the National Golf Foundation apologize to the hundreds of developers who went belly-up after assurance their new high-end, stupidly-difficult courses were a virtually guaranteed success.
• Have a hotline to God for anyone who hits a ball into you without yelling “Fore!” or who doesn’t repair ball marks and replace divots. Might as well do the same for those who leave cigar butts on the collars of greens.
• Institute a permanent ban on all those smelly perfume ads that stink up golf magazines and give me an immediate headache.
• See David Feherty become a legitimate candidate for the U.S. presidency on the Irish Golfer ticket.
• Ensure the courtesy cars provided the PGA Tour pros are Volkswagen bugs – the kind made in Mexico.
• See the PGA of America return to its core role as a supporter of its members [Author’s Note: The association has made strides in this area since the writing of this story.]
• Require any environmental group that feels it must assail the golf industry make its first phone call to the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America or the local turfgrass association.
• Let educational initiatives like the First Green program – and others like it – promoting the “green industry” to school-age kids proliferate throughout the nation.
• Let every tee shot bounce another 50 yards whenever it finds a fairway, but have every wayward shot – which, of course, wouldn’t be eliminated totally – backspin into the short grass.
• See golf return to its place as the “people’s game,” whereby everyone has access to it for a reasonable price – like $5 a round, at selected courses.

[Author’s Note: This story was originally written in 2003. As you have read, the issues addressed by the author back then are applicable today.]