The camaraderie of member golf
At the clubs that I belong to, there are signature intra-club competitions that take on a life and energy and banter that contributes to club spirit and member engagement unlike anything else. Most years my summer cottage schedule means that I take a pass on intraclub competitions like single and team match play brackets, because it’s just too tough to schedule matches and I end up letting people down with my unavailability in July and August. But this year, in a weak moment, I succumbed to an invitation from a friend to play in the club’s popular two-man bestball match play. The rules of our club’s competition say that if you win one year, you must find a new partner the next year, to rule out any handicap-fueled dynasties from developing. So Mickey came a calling for me after he and Donny were forced to split up.
In the world of club golf, at least the men’s version with which I’m most familiar, most of us aren’t called by our real names; it’s similar to what happens in beer league hockey. My 2-man partner is Mickey. I am Hickey. Our recent opponents were Donny and Smitty (pronounced Schmidty as if he was German, which is he is not). It is not lost on me that with names like this we could have easily been members of 60’s musical group The Monkees.
Mickey, now a few years into early retirement from his career in the tech industry, has become quite the copywriter in his spare time. He has taken on the role of cub reporter, weighing in on past and upcoming matches at our club in his once or twice weekly group emails. Some of us would say he’s got too much time on his hands, but most of us are just grateful for his wit and the sense of competitiveness that his musings stir within the group of single handicappers. When he and I recently took down our arch rivals, he penned the following poem (limerick?) while stuck in the airport in Chicago and sent it out to all of us:
Six down at the turn with nowhere to hide, The going got tough and Donny responded in kind, But the little Smitty engine was all tuckered out, It ran out of gas and waved the white flag, Enough of these two he said with a frown, I simply don’t have it I let Donny down.
Now the season end is near, And our team filled with fear, Should we play them again, For the third time this year?
I think we can beat them, Smitty said with a grin I’ll come in as an eight, And shoot 68!
There were even more stanzas in Mickey’s poem but I think you get the point. Belonging to a club, which in fact means belonging to an even smaller group of like minded (and sometimes not) golfers, fuels much of the passion people have for belonging to a club.
In recruiting members you often see golf clubs play around with price and tee time access and boast about course rankings and yardage. But the reality is much more complex than that. In the context of the Mickey poem above, I can tell you honestly that the true value and meaning of my membership at that place is this beautiful combination of camaraderie, of which Mickey’s poems are an example, spirited but certainly not PGA Tour quality matches, and the relaxed feeling of cottage country golf on a well-maintained course. It’s a magical potion for me, but ask the next Smitty or Donny and you might get something different. It’s something no brochure or price list can tell you. But it’s exciting to think that if you love golf, and you’ve never joined a golf club, there’s a whole new world, a sub-culture there just waiting for you. The trick is to find your Mickey, wherever and whatever that is. And the only real way of doing that is to join a club for a year or two and see for yourself.
Paul Hickey is a local golf enthusiast who can be followed on Twitter at @BrandHealthPrez.