It’s Not a Bag Full of Sand

“To find a man’s true character, play golf with him.” – P.G. Wodehouse

I used to play a good amount of golf. Never was any good at it and never seemed to get any better. I don’t know why I just used the word seemed, for I definitely never got one bit better at it. I finally realized I was just practicing my mistakes. I played golf, I guess, because I wanted to be with my friends and they genuinely enjoyed it. After the round they would process their performance by recalling the great shots they hit and lamenting the fact that if they hadn’t hit that one bad shot they would have had a great round. They still play but I seem to have lost all interest. I was more like Henny Youngman who said this about golf:

“While playing golf today I hit two good balls. I stepped on a rake.”

Golf is unique in the experience of man. Grown men tend to avoid things they are not good at. I can’t draw, so I don’t. I cant’ play the trombone, so I don’t. I can’t sing, so I don’t (at least not where anyone can hear). But grown men will play golf and truly love it, even though they are not good at it. Rory Mcllory is good at it, sorry guys, but my friends are not. They are better than me but that is not a high bar, but unlike me I can say that through the years the guys I played with the most, did get marginally better and I guess that’s all a man can ask.

You know who is good at golf? 45. He has a USGA handicap index of 2.8. That’s really good for a regular guy. To have such a low handicap one must really love and be dedicated to the game. Despite his comments on Mexicans being rapists, voter fraud, crowd size, Swedish terror attacks and wiretapping, I do no want to believe that 45 is a sandbagger. (sandbagging is actually claiming a higher handicap in order to improve chances of winning but the idea here is the same)  Golf, above all else, is a gentleman’s game, a game of honor and a game in which a man calls a foul on himself. (No stripped shirts running around) I truly believe that this plays a big part in the attraction of the game for a lot of people. P.G. Wodehouse again:

“Golf… is the infallible test. The man who can go into a patch of rough alone, with the knowledge that only God is watching him, and play his ball where it lies, is the man who will serve you faithfully and well.”

Surely to God, even a man so devoid of honor that he would mock a disabled reporter on television and be even more devoid of honor to then deny it, would not dishonor the dignity of the ancient and honorable pursuit of golf. 45 could not be a sandbagger I do not want to believe it. So, good for 45 that he both loves and is good at golf. I have played enough to know that to maintain a 2.8 handicap, one must play frequently, be dedicated to the next shot and be laser focused to repel distractions.

I fear that we will see a steady rise in 45’s handicap now that he has assumed high office. I am comforted that he is at peace with this inevitable deterioration in his game. During the campaign, on August 6, 2016 he said:

“I’m going to be working for you, I’m not going to have time to go play golf.”

He displayed, right there, great insight into the demands of high office and was quick to accept the sacrifices required for the success and ultimate re-unification of our country. He is acutely aware that the pursuit of golf interferes with effective leadership. He said this on the subject on October 13, 2014:

“Can you believe that, with all of the problems and difficulties facing the U.S., President Obama spent the day playing golf. Worse than Carter.”

I am no expert on punctuation and I don’t use Twitter, but isn’t that first line a question. I just did the same thing, did you notice. Did it again. I have no idea what the reference to Carter is, but other wise I think this is a terrific summation of the Obama Presidency. Too much golf! Pure, simple and somewhat understated just like golf.

Here are some more things 45 said about his predecessor’s affinity for golf.

October 14, 2014 – “We pay for Obama’s travel so he can fundraise millions so Democrats can run on lies. Then we pay for his golf.” Double whammy! Insult the entire Democratic Party and the President at the same time. I can smell the unity on this one.

October 23, 2014 – “President Obama has a major meeting on the N.Y.C. Ebola outbreak, with people flying in from all over the country, but decided to play golf!”

How did I miss the whole N.Y.C. Ebola outbreak and why was 45 so obsessed with Obama’s golf game for these 10 days in October 2014? Must have been in a slump; it happens to all golfers. Got to push through it! Maybe this will help me understand the problem here.

In his eight years as President, Obama used roughly $100 million in taxpayer money for what is considered personal travel. That works out to about $12 million per year. Who does this guy think he is anyway?

“The Obamas’ notorious abuse of presidential travel perks wasted military resources and stressed the Secret Service,” said Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton in a press release. Judicial Watch is an American conservative, non-partisan watchdog group that files Freedom of Information Act lawsuits to expose alleged misconduct by government officials. Notorious abuse is a non-partisan expression?

We now have 45 who takes this job seriously, realizes the need to be frugal with taxpayer money, is going to reduce the size of the Federal Government, cut taxes, eliminate cumbersome regulations like clean water and is willing to sacrifice his handicap for the good of the country. Good conservative principles all. But wait.

Hope springs eternal! Apparently the demands of high office are not what they seem to us mere mortals. Let’s get a tee time! Protect that 2.8. Climb Aboard!

Everybody, I hope, knows what this is. Air Force One costs $206,337 an hour to operate, and the D.C. to Palm Beach flight takes about two hours. That’s $824,000 right there, round-trip. Since taking office 45 has made five trips to Mar-a Lago with each trip costing around $3 million. Woops! By my count that’s $15 million in the first two months in office and puts him on pace to spend $90 million this year or $720 million in eight years just on golf trips. That handicap better come down if I am paying for that kind of green fee. This does not include the cost of his kids’ travel, his wife living in New York despite the Ebola issue or the cost to the local communities when they visit.

 

That non-partisan Tim Fitton must be livid. Let’s check in.

“Voters elected a president who has adult children with thriving businesses. Protecting them — even if they’re on private business — is just part of the cost built into this presidency. “People hired this president in part based on his business success,” he says. “There are extra costs associated with that business success as a result.”

I am reminded of a story I heard once about glass houses. Times change and we do too I guess. What seemed like notorious abuse is now just extra costs associated with having a successful businessman as President. Really?

Paul Ryan in a 2005 speech cited Ayn Rand as a key reason he went into politics. He said that he had made “Atlas Shrugged” required reading for his staff, and that he still liked to check his “premises” against passages from the book to be sure “that what I’m believing and doing and advancing are square with the key principles of individualism.” He has since renounced her philosophy as atheist so I guess he is not handing out her books to his interns anymore.

This is a good summary of Rand’s philosophy — unfettered self-interest is good and altruism is destructive. (Whoa) This, she believed, is the ultimate expression of human nature, the guiding principle by which one ought to live one’s life. To many of Rand’s readers, a philosophy of supreme self-reliance devoted to the pursuit of supreme self-interest appears to be an idealized version of core American ideals: freedom from tyranny, hard work and individualism. It promises a better world if people are simply allowed to pursue their own self-interest without regard to the impact of their actions on others. After all, others are simply pursuing their own self-interest as well. (Does that include selling peanut butter contaminated with Salomnella?)

I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I want to live in that world. I don’t know any conservatives that do either, but these principles do manifest themselves in much of the doctrine of the Republican Party. Government regulation stifles small business and hinders job growth. Healthcare should be based on free market principles, success is defined by your ability to accumulate resources (money), taxes should be low for the rich so they will have more money to spend, helping the rest of us. (Its called trickle down and it don’t work). Big government is contradictory to the founding fathers vision of the country and therefore should be dismantled.

I’m going out on a limb here and calling out 45. I am saying right here and right now that it is next to impossible for a 70 year old man who plays recreational golf to have a legitimate 2.8 handicap. He is reverse sandbagging and he is disgracing the dignity of an honorable game.

If he will sandbag his golf handicap, he will sandbag the rest of us, it’s in his character. Unfettered self-interest is how he has conducted his whole life and now he has a like-minded ally in Paul Ryan. I fear the dismantling of the government has begun. Are you ready for your parents to not have Medicare or Social Security? Are you ready to depend on corporations to protect the air and the water? Are you ready to live in world where there is no outlet for A Prairie Home Companion? Are you ready for schools run by for-profit companies?

The left needs to realize that government cannot be all things to all people, it cannot solve all the problems we have as a society. The left needs to realize that our debt and our deficits are real and are in fact unsustainable. The left needs to change its smug attitude of moral superiority and quit talking down to those that disagree with them. The left needs to realize that moral relativism is unsettling to people with deeply held moral beliefs.

The right needs to realize that too much money is concentrated in too few hands, and that corporations and free markets do not have people’s best interest at heart. The right needs to realize that poor people are not poor by choice or just looking for a handout. The right needs to realize that poor people cannot contribute to a healthcare savings account. The right needs to realize that they need to soften their message and to many people they just sound mean.

Both sides can agree that golf is a gentleman’s game, a game based on honor, a game in which each player acts as his own referee. It’s a game that demands and reveals character, a game in which you do not compete with your opponent but with yourself.

If we truly want to live in a civilized country, have a government that is effective, a country that is striving to solve its problems instead of trying to win the argument of the day, truly want to improve the greatness of America, then let us demand that our leaders conduct our political discourse in a way that more closely resembles the great game of golf.

“A kid grows up a lot faster on the golf course. Golf teaches you how to behave.” Jack Nicklaus

Thanks and Love to All!