today I golfed for the first time... and maybe the only time.
also another day of forgetting my camera, but that seems to be the theme for my fieldwork, and other golfing adventures.
there was a lot I wasn’t expecting, both good and bad
not including gas, food, or my friends club rentals, tees, and golf balls, I spent $188.00
(tee time, player x4, golf cart x2, for 9 holes),
aparently he gave me a little discount since I payed for everone (and it was our first time)...
I really can’t tell what was discounted.
first thing I noticed was how nerve wracking it was, I think we all kind of felt out of place,
good thing I wore my thrifted fit along with;
goodwill clubs
1 hybrid (which I mistook for a driver)
5 hybrid
7 iron
pitching wedge (favorite)
putter
all put into a DIY jean golf bag that I sewed this morning
accomponied by some sacrificed stuffed animal heads... which helped
directions here on golf digest
if someone would have given me a hard time I would have used the line
“oh you haven’t heard of the goodwill challenge? get all your clubs from goodwill, and then sew a bag from a pair of jeans, it’s not for the faint of heart”
(we ended up letting them play through--despite us keeping pace with them, I didn’t mind rushing instead of feeling rushed)
I will fully admit I probably whiffed a third of my shots, heres me hitting the orange ball, I won’t show the video which is me taking 10 “practice swings” before slicing it right.
(at least I kept my head down?)
one of the big things I learned was that despite me (and the crew) having never really golfed before, the difference in skill between us and the other groups wasn’t the much
we decided to let the group behond us play through but we all still teed off before,
when they finally teed off, promising to be out of our hair, their balls landed right by ours (granted we were teeing off from different handicaps, but still)
aparently the real difference is between us (beginners/ametuers) and people that play more than once a week (or played in highschool)
but back to the weird parts of the course!
it is an incredibly photogenic environment, so much so that part of me wants to use the word romance--a term I useto describe the allure of a kitchen or revolution
--but I don’t want to give it that much credit,
the space and place of it all is too weird for my liking, more synthetic and/or sculpted than I was prepared for,
here’s some photos that capture a bit of the magic; the lines from mowing, driving (golf carts), landscaping, raking
the course itself seemed grossly delicate... over controlled to the point of weakness (like inbreeding in the royal family and then being at high risk from any sickness)
sure it could kinda handle golf carts, clubs wacking it, and people walking all over it... but when that was compromised it got kinda gross
and here are some photos that captures some of this; standing puddles with oil, grass being “planted”, something green that I hope is a byproduct of mowing (and not some kind of dye or fertilizer)
more thoughts/notes/photos:
there were a lot of birds, well at least we heard a lot of birds
it was really strange to see all of the machinery and torn up chuncks bits of grass that are replaced
golf hole,
but check out some of the other negative spaces I saw ->