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Humor October 2012

Aid for Age

Finally Putting Away the Golf Clubs, But Not the Jokes

By Tait Trussell

Lee Trevino, once complained about problems he was having with his game by stating, “I’m not saying my golf game went bad, but if I grew tomatoes they would have come up sliced.” Another Trevino crack: “You don’t know what pressure is until you’ve played for five dollars a hole with only two dollars in your pocket.”

Thousands of jokes and one-liners have been told about the great game of golf. Innumerable hours of joy and frustration have been spent on courses across the globe by millions of seniors.

What’s not funny at all, however, is when the time finally comes when your age tells you that you can’t play anymore. An old buddy, also ripe in years, was a competitor for many summers. We knew he was on his last legs when I was consistently beating him. That was his last year. Now, it’s my turn to put away my clubs. I can still chip and putt on the practice green. But not for more than about 20 minutes. I do hope many of you readers will have many years more of the inevitable ups and down of the great game.

Here are a few golf chuckles some of which you may not have heard: “Golf is played by 20 million mature American men whose wives think they are having fun,” asserted the wise-cracking late New York journalist Jim Bishop.

A lonely wife purportedly said: “When I die, bury me on the golf course so my husband will come visit.”

The game is the target of brutal and sometimes amusing comments from a range of celebrities as well as some of the most famed players of the sport. Lee Trevino, once complained about problems he was having with his game by stating, “I’m not saying my golf game went bad, but if I grew tomatoes they would have come up sliced.” Trevino also was quoted as griping, “I’m in the woods so much I can tell you which plants are edible.” Another Trevino crack: “You don’t know what pressure is until you’ve played for five dollars a hole with only two dollars in your pocket.”

“The only time my prayers are never answered is on the golf course,” said Billy Graham.

“May the ball lie in green pastures...and not in still waters,” said an unknown author. Another said: “A golfer has an advantage over a fisherman. He doesn't have to produce anything to prove his story.”

Anyone who plays the great game expects when they are about to start a game that they are bound to play better than the last time they were on the course. With a game that is rife with uncertainties you have to have hope. “The harder you work at it, the luckier you get,” advised the winner of many major tournaments, Gary Player.

“Competitive golf is played mainly on a five-and-a-half inch course — the space between your ears,” explained the immortal golfer Bobby Jones.

Someone commented “I’ve spent most of my life playing golf; the rest I’ve just wasted.”

Mark Twain recommended, “It’s good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.”

Bob Hope had a bagful of jokes about golf. “I like to play in the low ‘70s. If it gets any hotter than that I’ll stay in the clubhouse.” Hope actually did shoot in the 70s. I remember the fun of following him around when he played in a tournament at the Army-Navy Golf Course near Washington, D.C., many years ago. He kept the crowds laughing at every hole.

Actor (and continually frustrated golfer) Jack Lemmon once warned: “If you think it’s hard to pick up new friends, try picking up the wrong golf ball.”

“The difference between golf and government is that in golf you can’t improve your lie,” someone wisely said.

Golfer Jimmy deMaret stated “Golf and sex are the only things you can enjoy without being good at them.”

One frustrated golfer declared: “My body is here, but my mind has already teed off. Another described his day: “Gone golfing...be back around dark-thirty.” Still another said: “I’ve had a fantastic round of golf; I’ve even got one ball left over.”

Even Winston Churchill defined golf as “A game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an even smaller hole with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose.” Another critic charged that “golf is a game invented by the same people who think music comes out of bagpipes.”

Finally, from Dean Martin: “If you drink, don’t drive. Don’t even putt.”

As golfing great Ben Hogan more broadly noted: “As you walk down the fairway of life, you must smell the roses...for you only get to play one round.”

 

Tait Trussell is an old guy and fourth-generation professional journalist who writes extensively
about aging issues among a myriad of diverse topics.

Meet Tait