I hope my brother was recalling a time I said that about a golf swing of mine but I can’t be sure. Even if it was said about me it’s certainly not something I said often during my decades of playing golf. My brother was really talking about the fact he hadn’t actually played golf in well over a year, though he owns a mountain cabin only a few hundred yards from a humble 9-hole track, his home course.

Instead, he’s been hitting plastic golf balls around a course he’s laid out for himself on a little patch of grass near, but not on, the golf course. The plastic balls have helped my brother shift his focus to the quality of contact, the rhythm of his swing, and the completeness of his follow through. He said, “It reminded me of one time when you said, ‘now that was a good swing.'” I remember pulling of a few of those but not enough to keep me on the course. The golf courses of California haven’t missed me and I haven’t missed them much either.

I’m not sure why my brother is not playing his home course but I’m happy he’s managed to create his own game. At its core, golf is one of the most made-up games possible. You have the course, the clubs, the ball, the hole, all came from very humble beginnings. The course was a pasture, the club a stick, the ball a stone and hole a hole, but one dug by a rabbit or some other burrowing critter. Now, the improvisation is pretty much over as evidenced by the supernatural condition of today’s golf courses, even those that host the once-scruffy British Open Rota.

It reminds me of why it was so easy to turn away from golf. It simply became too hard to play enough golf to support what would never be more than a serviceable game. Cost was a consideration. Pace of play never got faster, only slower. Those of you who have read Tennis thing know that two of my brothers continue to drive over eight-thousand miles a year just to play golf twice a week at their club.

Now I find myself living a few hundred yards away from a golf course my father liked to play when it was simply too hot to tee it up in the valley. The track has seen better days but I remind myself I’ve not played it in at least forty years. I recently heard it’s been sold but if it has there’s no evidence its new owners have any great ambitions for it. I walked onto it a few times over the last couple weeks, just before dark. My fondness for the dim quiet of golf courses toward the end of the day is still keen though my interest in playing is not. It’s easy to see why the routing of the course worked and what its designer, Ted Robinson, Sr., had in mind when he laid out parts of it. It’s a modest golf course but not without its charms even in its current state of neglect.

I know what you’re thinking; am I tempted to sneak onto the course and play a few holes? I cannot lie, I’ve joked about it to some of the locals and it would be easy. But, I think I’d rather join my brother on the course he’s created near his mountain cabin. It would remind me of all the times I played golf with my father in his backyard as the sun drew low in the sky.

For my brother, CJC.