Monday, August 24, 2015

My happy neighbor

I played golf last Friday with my next door neighbor which happens reasonably frequently. This was at a beautiful course up in Danville, VA that was new to us. Afterward we drove down to Greensboro to the Wyndham Golf tournament and saw Tiger woods and Davis Love play through right in front of us. I even saw myself on TV in the Saturday morning reports on Morning Drive, when they showed Tiger hitting his second shot on the 5th fairway. Lo and behold, there I was standing behind him at the edge of the fairway! How exciting!

My neighbor and friend is a PhD Chemist/College Professor, so he's got some serious smarts. He grew up in British Guyana before coming to the US to get his college education. And he's been here ever since. He's now a wiry upper middle-aged guy with slight graying hair and an aversion to chiggers.

As many times as I've enjoyed playing with my friend, this time was a bit more impressionable for me as I got fully present to his on-the-golf-course demeanor.Without any intention to be in any way critical of Mr L, I thought to share some things I noted about his demeanor when golfing.

One, he's got a heightened sense of bodily self expression.  He leans way over backwards with one leg way up in the air when his putts come near the cup as though he can will the ball to curve into the cup by body language alone. He's very limber.

Two, he cheers his own shots! Can you imagine? His standard cheer is "whew" but it's sung in a high pitch rather than just being said. When he's really wants to emphasize his cheer he adds "wee", so it comes out ,"woo wee", then a slight pause, then, "Yeah!"

Three, when he hits a good drive or iron shot he may break into that celebratory cheer along with a little jig sort of thing.

Four, he laughs a lot, and always seems happy.

I really like my neighbor a lot, but sometimes I wonder how much of this celebration and happiness I can take! After all, it's just golf'.

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