When you arrive early in a forum you desire to keep the subject in the air as much as possible, because any subject, is a limitation of the world. But subjects emerge, sooner or later, so it makes sense to choose one that is your own.
In Augusta, I saw dignity in people waiting in a line, to get a few minutes with golf professionals, to maybe get a bit of happiness in their Saturday morning foursome, or marriage. Maybe they heard about "Traxman" and wanted to see it up close.
When growing up in Bethesda, Maryland we had our share of Kemper Opens. One of the Head Professionals was teaching a PGA TOUR PLAYER. He made some money off of that fact. He tried to help the player that I worked for and he was told to go home, take his clubs, saw them off, and plant tomatoes.
I couldn't wait for the next Golf Magazine or Golf Digest to come out. In fact, I still have all my saved copies in boxes for easy access.
I'd look at the pictures and try to glean a tip to play better. My favorites were Seve and Mr. Venturi. they always seemed authentic, and as I came to know them personally, that idea came true.
I don't really know what anyone else here thinks or believes but I see this place, as an answer to the suffocating aesthetic of the vast world of golf. It really doesn't matter to me if you are the slum dog golfer or come from the home of golf.
My disdain for the elite kingdom of dullness, best observed Masters Sunday night, under the Big Tree on Magnolia Lane, is complicated. The only revenge is to lead a good life. That practice, that radical innocence will allow you to escape the pitfalls of golf, where solemnity is mistaken for seriousness, and obscurity is masquerading as profundity.
In the locker room at La Quinta, one of the Big Three Teachers made the room seem airless and stale. This place is fresh air, an antihierachical world where "sometimes nothing is a real cool hand".
Now here we are, and the one thing to remember when you are coming up eighteen, and you're trying to finish strong when everything may seem, jocular, is that your love and passion, gives absolutely everything importance and rejects no part of this world.
This is where Manzella begins, and seems as good a place to end.
