FORE

FORE

I started to develop an interest in golf after I came back from the Philippines where I attended our 25th anniversary reunion at the UPCM (University of the Philippines College of Medicine) in 1992. Johnny had founded the PGAG (Philippine Golf Association of GA) and was very immersed in the game, and was often out for hours on weekends playing. I had not been interested, scoffing at the game as too slow and for older people, whereas I was an A tennis player in the (Atlanta Lawn Tennis Association) ALTA tournaments. But I got interested when I saw Volette practice with her new clubs while visiting her in Milwaukee, and I liked the golf outfits, so I bought my golf clubs and took lessons and from there I was hooked. It was a frustrating game and required much time and patience to learn and you find out you are never done with learning and practice and a game could go south anytime you lose focus and your stars are not aligned, for it requires much skill and a lot of intangibles to be in the zone, but if everything is right and you are in the zone its an unforgettable transcendental experience , and in all the years iv’e been immersed in the game It happened to me only once. It’s akin to what others describe as a religious ecstasy, a feeling of lightness as if one is in a dream, floating in air where everything feels right and your body feels a rhythm with yourself and you are driving the ball flawlessly and reading putts accurately and sinking it down for pars. I could do no wrong, for even if a shot goes awry, I somehow ended up with a lucky break and saved the hole for par. And you get hooked and couldn’t wait to go out to play again and repeat the feeling, and that’s what happened without me realizing that I had become addicted to the game. I didn’t do anything else with my free time and I was the one initiating the scheduling so that Johhny didn’t have to invent stories so he could be away for hours to play and he became the envy of his foursome group for he could play without any worries about their wives feeling abandoned on weekends. I developed a way to attach my travels to golfing holidays and we played all of the courses featured in the PGA tournaments. We golfed our way in Scotland at the venerable ST. Andrews, in Ireland, in Spain, in Australia, in the Philippines, all over the US. We planned to take a road trip in our retirement visiting friends and classmates all over the US and playing the golf courses in the area, but of course this was abandoned after his death in 2004, and since my diagnosis of Parkinson’s in 2017, my game is no longer sustainable and I haven’t swung a golf club since, but I can still play my short game and putt to enjoy the occasional round with friends, and so long as I can move and keep pace with the game I’ll find a way to go out there when good company beckons