A golfing wish list for the new year
Things to look forward to and reflections of what the game gives to those who play
Canadian golfers are getting psyched for the upcoming golfing year. I know I am. On the night before Christmas, it wasn’t sugar plums dancing in my head, but visions of a double fist pump when I snaked in a 25-footer for birdie.
The beauty of the new year is that everybody starts out with a fresh scorecard. Optimism is still high. The golfing gods are smiling. Anything is possible.
Like all golfers, for 2014, I have a list of swing tics I’m trying to straighten out. Right now, I’m consistently inconsistent from 100 yards in. Each wedge shot has the possibilities of an Indiana-Jones-type adventure. Fortunately, for me and for most golfers, the game is about more than going low. There are plenty of other golfrelated things that I want to experience in 2014.
I want to attend a tournament and watch Tiger, Phil and Bubba and the boys in the flesh. While television makes it look like they play the same game as the rest of us, they really don’t. When you get up close and personal, you realize that the ball makes a different sound when they hit it; it comes off their driver with a crack, as a Jose Bautista home run ball does, and when big-league golfers are hitting it sweetly, the ball almost floats down the fairway.
The very best golf tournament-party combo is the Waste Management Phoenix Open which runs from Jan. 27 to Feb. 3. Don’t be put off by the unwieldy name. While the tournament attracts top talent, is also the closest the PGA Tour gets to a college kegger. More than half a million golf nuts descend on the tournament and most of the players are stoked with the hoot-and-holler vibe.
And don’t forget about the LPGA. Luckily, this year we have the chance to see the top women players twice in southwestern Ontario. From June 4-8, there is the Manulife Classic at the Grey Silo Golf Club in Waterloo, and, from Aug. 21-24, the Canadian Pacific Women’s Open at the London Hunt Club.
This might also be the year to expand your golfing horizons. One of my favourite things about the game is its versatility. Golf courses wind through mountains and deserts, hip hop across forests and into city centres, wend their way along the edges of oceans and tip-toe through the spray of roiling white waters.
Golf travel can provide unique sights. After playing at a number of courses in southeast China, our group was heading back to Hong Kong on a tour bus. About an hour into the trip, the latest version of a Mercedes sports coupe flew past us. At that same instant, we passed a farm where a man with a wooden yoke slung across his shoulders was carrying water pails to the cattle trough. The juxtaposition mirrored much of what we had seen in China.
Golf can be the key to so many experiences. Play away! Ian Cruickshank is a Toronto based writer. His column usually appears on the fourth Saturday of each month.