JIM FALL: Have you noticed what ‘golf’ spells backwards? 

Man, here it is not even February and I’ve got it bad.

My golf game has gotten so much better over this past winter — which really hasn’t been much of a winter at all — that I can’t wait to get back out on the course and put everything I’ve improved on into practice.

I mean, after all, I have new clubs, including a putter, and they don’t much resemble the older set I’d been playing with for the past 12 or so years. All this new technology is really something else.

Or so they tell me.

Senior flex shafts, a half inch longer than before. With a draw bias.

I’ll readily admit I have several biases, not all golf related, that I haven’t been able to cure over the years. I’ll let you know about that one after I get a few rounds under my new belt.

When I hit it right, it's a draw.  When I hit it left, it's a fade.  If I hit it straight, it has to be a miracle. (Remember, I play the silly game left-handed.)

As I was talking to my golfing buddy about the prospects of our maybe playing this week, I mentioned to him I was almost certain to start getting more distance with my sleek new aerodynamic driver.

Glenn, usually supportive and helpful, somewhat respectfully disagreed.
“
The only way you’re going to get more distance is to turn and run backwards after you hit it,” he said.

“Thanks for the support,” I said. “And the only reason you’re able to enjoy the game more these last couple of years is you can’t remember your bad shots.”

What I’m afraid I’m going to find out once the really warm, golf weather rolls around is that the trouble with these modern matched sets of clubs is that they don't really know any more about the game than the old ones did.

One of my favorite golf sayings is attributed to Raymond Floyd, my wife’s student when he was a senior at Fayetteville High School in North Carolina. He joined the Tour at 19 and has a deep understanding of the game.

“They call it golf because all of the other four-letter words were taken,” Raymond once said. 

I have known for several years my biggest handicap was my ability to add correctly, but it was Paul Harvey who quipped, “Golf is a game in which you yell ‘fore,’ shoot six, and write down five.”

Practicing that philosophy, I might even get to the point where I shoot my age one of these days. Thank goodness, I’m usually pretty well under that for nine holes, but, like Bob Hope once noted, “I'll shoot my age if I have to live to be 105.”

The priest at my Episcopal church in Helena, Mont., was an avid golfer, who lived with a terrible secret. One Sunday morning early in the season, he called in the assistant to conduct the early service so he could squeeze in a quick nine holes before the main service.

The story he told to make his escape was never known to me, but word eventually got around why he was never able to boast of his only hole-in-one. You know, golf can best be defined as an endless series of tragedies obscured by the occasional miracle, which he never could speak of.

He did quote Scripture to me once during a round, though. “May thy ball lie in green pastures … and not in still waters” he said as I addressed a fairway wood across a sprawling pond.

Comforting. Very comforting. I had not even thought about hitting into that dam pond until he said that.

Up until that time, I had been hitting the woods just great. But I was having trouble getting out of them.

After that shot, we laughed about an interview Lee Trevino had given following a tournament round.

“I was one under,” he said. “One under a tree, one under a bush, one under the water.”

I’m not sure if it was the same tournament, but the speaker was the same. “My swing is so bad I look like a caveman killing his lunch,” he said.

Glenn and I agree on almost everything while we are in our golf cart together. And we coach each other a little.

There was one day late last season when we he decided to cut the dogleg of No. 5 at the country club. After a mighty swing that had at first produced a ball seemingly in perfect flight, I honestly observed, “If you had cleared the trees and driven the green, that would’ve been a great shot.”

We both do agree, however, that a "gimme" results from an agreement between two golfers, neither of who are putting very well on a given day.

We know the rules, and we abide by them. Who doesn’t respect that it's good sportsmanship not to pick up lost balls while they are still rolling.

We also agree with the great Harry Vardon that it is not good to play too much golf.

“Two rounds a day are plenty.”

I used to play some tennis, and even have tried bowling a couple of times.

I have stuck with golf, though, even if bowling does have one big advantage — you seldom, if ever, lose a bowling ball.

Jim Fall is a local weekly columnist. He is a former publisher of the Maryville Daily Forum.