Some people are really serious about golf

A few weeks ago Alexander and I played golf in Germany. We didn't think it was anything that we could do because golf here is expensive. In order to play you need to be a member at a country club. Once you are a member of a club, you can play on any golf course even if you aren't a member there. I think the membership thing is to prove that you actually can play golf. They don't want any rifraf on the course. The alternative to being the member of a golf club is that you can hire a Golf pro to go out with you who will sign something that verifies that you understand the rules of golf and then you can also play on golf courses in Germany. The logic is a little like my childhood friend's crazy family who wouldn't let her drive the family's prized possession (the Teal Blue, oval-shaped-everything, Ford Taurus) until she had driven the Taurus. I am not sure how one can crack the you-aren't-allowed-to-do-this-until-you've-done-this conundrum, but I think the answer is in the bible somewhere.

Like most things that seem impossible or univiting, it is usually a matter of just knowing the right people or the secret, local's trick to get around whatever barrier. Turns out there is a golf course about ten minutes from our apartment that lets you play pretty much no matter what. And the guy who checks you in and doesn't check for your official Golfers Association of Germany card also charges €10 for everything. Round of golf? 10 Euro. Golf glove? 10 Euro. Leopard print visor that pinches onto your head instead of going all the way around? 10 Euro. Sweet.

So a few weeks we played golf for the first time in Germany. IT WAS AWESOME. I am sure there are lots of courses in the world that have rolling greens and 45 Mexicans to keep the grass at a perfect level, ball-washers at every hole, shoe-cleaners, towels, wooden signs that indicate what hole you are on and even maps. But how many people have played on a golf course with a full-on chicken coup behind the fourth tee? What about having to walk between to two horse pastures to get to the third hole? Not too many. Our 10Euro friend actually had to draw us a map of the course because the holes are not marked with numbers. There are also no sandtraps and no water. But there is are horses and basically the fairways are parallel to eachother so that at any given time there is usually someone else playing their ball off of your fairway, but he's facing the other direction. The fairway, by the way is really just grass. You can tell what is not the fairway even though it is also only just grass because it is only cut every two weeks instead of once a week.




I started to laugh on the first hole thinking this would be good for practice. Plus, it helps me to play golf when it is not so serious and expensive. We played with a friend of ours who, though a well-meaning guy, could not quite adjust to the fact that he would be playing nine holes (18 holes means just playing hte course twice) in Bumblefuck Germany basically on some extra farm land. I say if a rooster is cockadoodledooing not more than three meters from you, you should probably put all of your sacred golfing rules in your pocket until the next course. If you can smell horse shit and actually see which horse is shitting and the hole is exactly a straight line 220 meters in front of you, maybe you don't need three practice swings. We ended up having to let three groups play through us as we obeyed all the whoever has the longest distance to the hole plays first rules. The irony is that our more sophisticated golfer friend ended up losing 9 balls, that's one for each hole, as the unmowed grass (of DEATH!) got the best of him. Alexander and I didn't lose any balls. Plus, we discovered that we can play golf in our own town and see the country-side at the same time.