Jonesing for a Fix

This is how herion addicts must feel when they are trying to give up the junk, but still live in the same neighborhood as their dealer and have to pass him on the street each morning as they try to get clean. There is a knowing glance--that look like "you'll be back, you poor bastard, you'll be back." The addict just keeps on walking, his head down muttering to himself, trying to convince the demons in his head that he has finally kicked this thing and there is no way he would ever get back on the juice, but realizing deep down that he is just kidding himself. Before too long, those subtle glances from his dealer are no longer just subtle glances, and he finds himself rationalizing "Just one hit, just one hit, and then I swear, no more. If I just get that one little fix, I will be fine. Just as taste..."
Well, we all know where this one goes. He's back to see his friend at the corner every day, sometimes several times a day--stealing from his girlfriend's parents to fill the addiciton. It isn't his fault you see, the desire is just so strong that he is willing to destroy everything in his life because he just can't stop. This is the sad fate that has reared its ugly head in my life again, only my addiction isn't smack, crack or meth. My mistress has a name, and her name is Golf, perhaps the ugliest four letter word in the English language.
There are those of you out there who are scratching your heads, saying, "But Josh, Golf is just a game--surely you can kick that habit." Au contraire, mon ami. Just a game--hardly. Golf saps every ounce of life out of your soul--it is an unforgiving bitch that refuses to let you be free. My marriage is constantly at risk to the whims of the Golf Gods, and yet I succumb to their siren like calls. Like the heroin addict, I can stop for a while, but once I get that taste, there is this uncontrollable urge for another round, and then another and before I know what has happened, every day that I have off, I am trying to figure out a way to get out for 18 holes, or maybe just a quick 9--what can be the harm in a quick 9 for crying out loud? "Come on, baby--you know I love you, but I gotta get out to the range. You understand, don't you baby? This is the last time--I swear it, the last time, but I gotta work out the kinks in my three-wood. Please, for the love of God woman, please just let me go! I got beat by freaking Bradley last week--come on--you gotta let me play, he won't shut up about it at work, now everybody knows. I just gotta work out a few kinks--why do you have to be so heartless? Why!?!?!" She just stares at me with that "I'm taking the kids to a place that you will never find any of us" look, and quite frankly, who can blame her?
The real problem is my job. You don't let a crack addict work at the supply lab (I saw what happened to Chris Rock in New Jack City and that blue-lipped freak never had a chance). But every day, I have to peer off the patio onto the lush silhouetted fairways of this magnificent course, knowing full-well that all it takes to go out and play a completely free round of golf on one of the greatest courses in the state is a 10 second walk over to the starter and a trip to the locker room to slap on some shoes. What kind of cruel hell have I created for myself? I don't even need to pay for golf balls, as I find at least 20 brand-new Nike, Callaway, or Titleist balls on the course each time we go out because the members and resort guests (who are shelling out nearly $300 a round for golf) aren't going to waste their time looking under a cactus for a $4 golf ball.
The grip that golf has on all of us who are foolish enough to pick up a club for the first time is that you never master it. It doesn't matter how good you become, you always can get better. You can be a 30 handicap and get excited when you actually have a day where you are playing in the fairway more often than in the rough. You can be a 18 handicap and nail a birdie on both the front nine and the back nine and be thrilled at how your game is progressing. You can be a single-digit handicap and get fired up when your sand wedge gets a little juice on it and you get it to spin in the right direction a couple of times in a round. You can be a scratch golfer and marvel at a bogey-free round. You can be on the PGA tour and ranked number one in the world and decide to revamp your swing entirely (twice) because you want to be able to become the greatest player the world has ever known.
The game is also extremely mental--it takes a great deal of focus, concentration, thought, course management, living within your game, determination, fear of failure, difficult decisions of risk-reward holes and so forth. You always have to be thinking about the shot that you are about to make and finding a way to forget about the shot that you just made to put you in the situation that you find yourself (good or bad). There is nothing worse on the golf course than thinking about how great your drive was and then chunking your wedge into the creek and turning a birdie into a double bogey. Nothing, except chunking your drive in the first place and thinking about that one before you chunk your three wood behind a tree, followed by a low liner to the thick rough on the opposite side of the fairway, back to the fairway where you end up chunking the the wedge into the creek anyway because you are so pissed off about the first four shots that you stop counting altogether because you lost track and you hate this freaking game and always will.
So once in a while, I go out and tempt fate and addiction and play 18. I am now in the throws of a severe craving. I find myself in the dining room gently sobbing to myself as I watch the deadbeats and hacks finish up on the 18th green just feet below. The course is wide-open today, and the hotel is at 28% during one of the historically slowest periods of the year. Do I dare risk getting caught out there with a five-iron in my hand and no reasonable explanation when Kim makes a surprise visit? Probably not. The reality is that playing golf with a guilty conscience takes away from the enjoyment. I don't understand it really, but it does. In my lifetime, one of the greatest pleasures that I take from any activity is that energy that is created when you are afraid of getting caught--it is supposed to make things more fun because the adrenaline rush associated with risk is intoxicating. I spent the better portion of my high school years trapped in my room due in no small part to this fact. But on the Golf course, relaxation is critical to enjoyment. There is nothing like being out on a sunny clear day with three of your best friends with only the slightest hint of a zephyr to deter your ball flight without a care in the world other than getting up and down to save par from the greenside bunker.
Kim doesn't understand this. Well, maybe she does, but she can't justify half a day (or more) on one of my precious days off to disappear and play golf instead of spending time with the kids. When she puts it into that perspective, there shouldn't be any conflict. There is no substitute for being around and watching Hunter and Lauren grow up, and truly, I hate to miss any of it. But do you think that our pal, the smack addict doesn't want to stop, doesn't know how he is affecting those around him, doesn't understand that he is destroying his life and the life of others? Of course he does. But like herion, golf doesn't give a rat's ass about me, my family or anything else. She knows I'll be back, she knows I can't quit.