The "aspirational game"

 The “aspirational game”                                                                 

Bobby Jones' cousin Jackass Jones

No one writes the truth about golf, because it is the damned-foolishest of all the addictions. It is as expensive as drink, even high-class drugs; and it lacks the benefits of either. The highs are shorter lived; the lows last longer. The highs are lower; and the lows more desperately self-indulgent. The gentlemen that play are for the most part jackasses pretending to be gentlemen. No one doesn’t cheat, if he thinks he can get away with it. The golfer is inspired to cheat, because the rules are not intended to make fair a game that is most unfair to begin with. No one doesn't cheat, because he can't help it. “The Rules of Golf” is more persnickety and meaner than Leviticus, impossible to follow if you’ve been drinking. And who would play sober? It is an addiction within an addiction on a ground itself addicted, chemically green even in the grainy old sepia-toned photographs.

03.14.16