Golf has become my post-retirement passion. I’ve written about it here. Now that I’m a registered Bendite (Bend, Oregon that is), I’ve been hitting up some of Central Oregon’s courses. Five so far: Juniper up the road in Redmond, Widgi Creek in Bend on the road to Mt Bachelor (the nearest volcano), Meadow Lakes – a muni in Prineville, Crooked River Ranch near Terrebonne and the one I’ve adopted as my ‘home’ course, River’s Edge in Bend.

River’s Edge – so named because it nestles up to the Deschutes River – features some fairly spectacular scenery owing to its location on the side of Awbrey Butte. While the scenery off the butte is far better on the west side where you can see a string of Cascades volcanoes – Mt Bachelor, Broken Top, the Three Sisters and Mt Jefferson – the east side where the golf course is located offers expansive views of Central Oregon. It’s quite impressive, I think.

My house is at the base of Awbrey Butte, so River’s Edge is almost walking distance, were it not for the up and down elevation change created by the butte. Five minutes in a car, tops, gets me from my garage to the golf course parking lot. So, it’s natural that I want River’s Edge to be my home course. You don’t really need a ‘home course’ – you can just just play wherever you want, whenever you want. But golf courses almost always offer membership discounts and I bought one at River’s Edge.

One of the problems with my choice is that River’s Edge is extraordinarily difficult for average, short hitters like myself. With many shots, if you’re a bit off, you’re in big trouble. I’m not accurate enough to be comfortable hitting those shots.

But that’s not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about how golf courses co-exist with their community and River’s Edge has a huge, glaring problem in that regard. Bend is an outdoor paradise, with the city, county and state offering lots of parks, trails and other recreational outlets. I love it. One of the more popular is the Deschutes River Trail, a developed path that runs a long way along the Deschutes River. The scenery is great, it’s accessible along its route at many places, and it of course runs along the river.

It also runs through River’s Edge Golf Course. The interaction between the two is short but significant. Really, it’s just one hole. You can see it on Google Maps:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/River’s+Edge+Golf+Course/@44.0809676,-121.3123452,295m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x54b8c8b80ae5f25b:0x7ed515357dee6a06!8m2!3d44.0767498!4d-121.3166817?hl=en

(I apologize for the lengthy link – I suppose I could use tinyurl but I’m not space limited here, so why bother)

If you look at the bottom center of that view, a little to the left, you will see a set of tee boxes for the 3rd hole of the course, located to the right of NW Fairway Heights Dr (tee boxes are small, grassy areas where golfers start a hole, where they hit their first shot of the hole). They are to the left of the Deschutes River Trail, which is labeled on Google Maps. Looking NNE, you will see the fairway for the 3rd hole. It is on the other side of the trail, meaning golfers must hit across the trail from the tee box to the fairway. Not only that, note that because the 3rd green is located a fair distance up at the end of the fairway (the 3rd is a par 4), the proper line for the tee shot is not that far off the line of the trail. It doesn’t take much of a mishit to send a golf ball straight up the trail, where people are walking.

I’ve played this hole from the tee box three times now and it has scared the shit out of me each time. There are no warning signs for the golfer, nothing to say ‘beware of people on the path in front of you’. There are warning signs for the trail users but they are inadequate. Imagine you are out with the kids, the family, the dog, walking the Deschutes River Trail. You see a sign saying to watch out for golf balls. Really? What are you, a trail user, going to do to minimize the danger? Run as fast as you can through the area? That actually would be a good idea but how many people will? And if the golfer hits an errant shot that heads down the trail? What is he or she going to do? The traditional warning is to yell FORE!, but that really only is effective for people on a golf course who are, or should be, cognizant of what it means. For non-golfers who aren’t really expecting it (despite the signs), I think a common inclination would be to turn your head towards the sound of the person yelling FORE! and thus get hit directly in the face by a high speed golf ball.

It’s not safe. The last round I played using that tee box, I waited for a woman, two kids and a dog to make their way far enough up the trail to be what I thought was safe. They weren’t. Probably because of my anxiety, I blasted a shot that hooked and headed straight for them, or where I feared they would be (they were out of sight). Horrified, I still thought to refrain from calling out a warning, hoping no one would get hit, but not wanting to risk a face shot. Fortunately, no one was hit, but I found my ball on the left side of the trail, meaning it traveled along and across the trail and really could have hurt someone.

It’s not safe. With warm weather, more and more people flock to the Deschutes River Trail. Golfers will not be able to wait for the trail to clear.

The solution is to redesign the hole. Make it a par three by putting the tee box on the other side of the trail, maybe halfway up the fairway. That won’t eliminate the danger, but a mid-iron shot that isn’t aimed across the trail is far less dangerous to bystanders than a ball coming off the face of a full-force driver, as it is now.

For myself, I now play the hole by dropping my ball on the fairway (on the other side of the trail) at a distance I figure would be right for my average tee shot.

For those living on the precipice of madness, I cannot recommend the game of golf, for it will surely push you into the abyss. Only those firmly rooted in self awareness should make any serious attempts at mastering the sport.

Albert Einstein is often quoted as saying (paraphrasing) that ‘insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.’ He probably didn’t say that but the notion is a good one. A corollary to that maxim might be ‘doing the same thing over and over again and getting different results may drive you insane.’

And that sums up golf pretty well. Swinging a three and half foot long club in an attempt to propel an inch and half diameter ball in such a way to cause it to move a significant distance through the air in a direction close to intended and in a repeatable fashion is maddening. Even after you have learned and somewhat mastered (a relative term, to be sure) the key elements of the golf swing, making that ball do what you want is a very dicey proposition. You may think you are recreating the swing that just deposited the ball on the green on the last hole, but no. This time it flies off on a wholly unintended path, leaving you utterly perplexed and exasperated.

I’m vain enough to think I can play golf reasonably well despite not engaging the sport in any significant manner for most of my adult life. It was just two years ago that I took up the game seriously. Prior to that, I called myself a tennis player, if anything. Tennis is a sport I got pretty good at, especially on an intellectual level. I know the game and have taught others to play with some success. Tennis, like other sports where the idea is to hit something and make that something go where you want it to (baseball is another), requires hand-eye coordination and an awareness of what your body is doing. You can’t reliably hit a topspin backhand unless you know what your racket hand, your feet, your torso and the ball are doing in time and space. Although the golf ball is not moving when you strike it, the speed of the clubhead at impact and the relatively small area of contact ‘sweetspot’ make hitting a driver every bit as challenging as that backhand, or hitting a curveball. It requires precision of movement, something gained only through experience and repetition. I was convinced that my tennis skills would translate well to golf. Not so much, as it turns out.

The main issue is that, unlike with a tennis racket, I have no good way of knowing what I am doing with a golf club during a swing, at least not well enough to self-diagnose problems. It is very hard to know how you are presenting the clubface to a golf ball at impact, what the swing path through the impact zone is and whether you have hit the sweet spot. The last part is probably the easiest – if you hit off center, you can feel it. But not as well as with a tennis racket. Video helps, as does engaging an instructor.

Last week, I played my ‘home’ course. Just a 9-hole, par 3 and 4 course, it’s actually quite challenging. Most of the holes are golfing death traps with only small target areas where you can hope to score well. Hitting the ball outside those areas often results in disaster. I’ve played the course many times, so I know where to hit the ball on each hole. Easier said than done. On one short par 3, a smooth lofted iron will put you on the green. Birdie or par is yours for the taking. Easy peasy, right? But if you hit it slightly left, long or right, well, you’ll be lucky to escape with double bogey. It’s an elevated green and the terrain around the green is horrible. After numerous adventures trying to get the ball on the green on my second shot – usually unsuccessfully – I’ve taken to not even trying for the green off the tee. Hitting short of the green and hoping for a good chip and putt for par is the way to go. Other holes are similarly treacherous.

My goal is to shoot less than bogey for the round. It’s a par 31 course so that means less than 40. On a recent Monday, I had a great round but managed just 40, which was still my best. I played well, for me anyway. Energized by that round, I played again on Wednesday, convinced I had a good shot at 39. Nope. Despite feeling good about my game, I played horribly. Couldn’t hit a thing and was constantly in the deep rough, which is brutal at this course. I actually ended up hurting my left arm from all the shots out of deep grass and quit after seven holes, a million over par. What a disappointment. Makes you think there’s no use trying to get better.

After staying away from the game so my arm could recover, I return to the home course a week later and shoot a cool 37. All through the round, I felt no different with my swing and actually was more than a bit worried about when disaster would return. Almost every shot I expected to shank into the trees. Nope. I even made a birdie on one hole, a rare thing for me.

It’s maddening, I tell you. It’s as if there’s no skill involved – it’s all luck, the mood of the gods, phase of the moon, whatever.

Tennis never did this to me.