My early educational career consisted of me being homeschooled. Now, you may ask yourself, why, and or, how does this relate to my shortcomings in the game of golf? Well, it relates back to all the free time that I had as a kid due to being homeschooled.

First off, I'd like to start by allaying the fears of those who are wary of homeschoolers by saying that being homeschool did not make me into a Bible-thumping, gun totin', introverted moron who is so socially inept that his best friend is a log. No, I did not inherit any of these traits (although I have had some rather rousing conversations with trees, none were so enthralling that I would elevate them to "best friend" status), but I did find myself stuck with the other curse of homeschooling: too much free time. Now, this typically is not a problem for adventurous children with friends. The other curse of homeschooled children is directly related to this matter.

Homeschooled kids who are extroverted enough to have friends are likely not to have any other friends that are homeschooled due to the above reasons of zealotry, introvertedness, and attraction to trees. Thus they are relegated to having friends in public schools who are subject to 8 to 3 schedules. Being one of these outgoing youths, I remember many days sitting in the driveway killing ants by the hundreds or throwing a ball against the side of the house. Alone. Waiting for my friends to get home from school. Killing ants. If this doesn't set the groundwork for a child to become homicidally deranged, I don't know what will. I might add, at this time, my family did not have access to that wonderful service that brings talking pictures into a little box with a glass front. Consequently, I was forced to watch whatever movies that we owned again and again, on repeat. Can your children say that they've seen Star Wars 247 times? On VHS? I can. Needless to say, that tape sounded like a '82 Toyota Celica with a bad timing belt.

So the questions remains: How did my family ween me away from this path to almost-certain medication? Well, you can credit my father with saving my from this state by dragging me, at a very young age and with much hesitation, along as he indulged in his hobbies. This is not to say that my mother did nothing to help me, but she worked at home and, after schooling me for four or five hours a day, she needed a break from yours truly. Anyway, it should be noted that one of my father's favorite "urban" hobbies is golf. Although he doesn't play much anymore, as golf has evolved into a sport for the rich elite who can afford to buy clubs made from weapons-grade metals from outer space and play at exclusive resorts where everyone looks like a pimp with poor fashion sense, he excels at it (more on this later). And, in a what I believe was a thinly-veiled show of pride in his skills, he would take me along to wonder at the miracles he would produce with a club and a ball. Hitting the green on a Par 3? Impossible. Never before had man done this in my presence. In my pre-pubescent brain, I was amazed. My golf hierachy went something like this: God, Jesus, a man named Chi Chi, and then my dad. What was my price of admission for this show of finely-honed skill? Carrying the bag.

So, as I embarked on my journey of discovery about the game of golf, I was tasked with carrying my father's golf clubs, dutifully trudging after him as he remarked on the day's beauty and whatnot. Normally, the art of "caddying" is reserved for the professional level and is such hardly ever seen on the amateur level. Typically, at the amateur level, this position is relegated to small children or friends who have lost a bet and would rather look like a character on "Roots" than do the "funky chicken" in a Speedo. But there I was, pulling the cart of clubs, getting the whole golf course "experience".

My previous experience with golf courses had been limited, even though we practically lived next to one. On a money-making endeavor, I used to trudge across the street into the weeds surrounding the golf course to find what I would later begin to call, "Ah, $%#&!!!" shots, or errant golf balls. Collecting these balls into buckets, I would stand clutching the chain-link fence like a Sobibor inmate, waiting for some golfer to come by and find it in their hearts to buy back one of their "Ah, $%#&!!!" shots. Now that I think about it, I was really adding insult to injury. Not only are you terrible at a sport, but you have to buy back your equipment from a kid. Ouch. All in all, I think I made about $2 total, which is odd because some of these guys looked like they were using top-of-the-line equipment and like they wouldn't mind buying balls at a discount price.

But, now I had arrived. I was on the golf course, not playing, but that didn't really matter. As I caddied for my dad several games, I slowly began to realize that my purpose there was not to help with reading the fairways or greens, nor was it to suggest which club to use in tricky situations. No, my purpose was to pull the cart, produce the specific club that my dad desired, and to track down the occasional errant shot. In essence, I was an unholy cross between a vending machine and a labridor retriever with a trailer hitch.

(On a side note, I do plan to write an expose on my role as the surrogate family dog. I respond to whistles. It's sad, I know.)

As nearly everyone in this world knows, golf is not a fast-twitch kind of sport. Any sport where the announcers are under contract to keep their voices at a whisper and not get in the way of the sound of the wind is one without a lot of explosive action. It was during the retrieval of one of the aforementioned errant shots that I realized that I did not possess the skill set to be a golf superstar. This is memory that remains incredibly vivid in my mind, much like the memory of your graduation from college or your first kiss.

It was a cloudy day in late March or early April and my dad and I were on the golf course. I was pulling the cart, as usual, and my dad was playing his typical "magic" game of golf. Then, I think to simply test my loyalty, he hit a wide hook shot that landed in parts unknown. Not seeing where the shot landed, we simply took a drop and he kept playing. A while later, we passed by the playground yard of a local elementary school which bordered the golf course. There, like that little golden man in "Raiders of the Lost Ark", lay the ball. Right in the middle of the playground. After some convincing, I went over the fence. Walking like a man in a minefield, I crept across the schoolyard, asking God if He would kindly spare me from recess. As soon as I reached the ball, all hell broke loose. The bell rang and children began to erupt out of the school doors. I imagine my eyes must have grown to about the size of tennis balls, but my hesitation was momentary and I ran at top speed for the fence. Had there been a film crew present, they would have needed slow motion to see me on playback. I believe I am youngest person in the world to achieve the "blur" effect, a state usually reserved for those being chased by wild animals or the police. As I scaled the chainlink fence like a spider monkey, I heard a teacher yell, "There he goes!" In hindsight, I'm glad that they do not issue recess aides tranquilizer rifles as I probably would have woken up in a classroom and been forced to stay there for the remainder of the day. My dad and I have had many good laughs about this experience in the years since it happened, but I always felt like a deserved something a little extra for my courage and dedication to the "Ah, %$#&!!!" shot. Maybe like a medal or something...

After carrying the bag for my dad on a large number of occasions, I figured, again with some persuasion on his part, that I would now attempt to make my mark on the great sport of golf. Thus, I got enrolled in lessons...and promptly stunk the joint out. But I was undetered by my shortcomings and aside from a massive headwound sustained by one of my fellow classmates, the class was uneventful and I grasped the basics...in theory. I have to note here that at this time I was having fun playing golf. When your friends suck too, it's fun because nobody feels like a mentally damaged person on the course. And hey, shooting a 135 on nine holes is pretty good when you're doing second grade math in your head. This feeling of fun would change very shortly.

Upon seeing my apparent glee at picking up this new sport, my dad jumped at the chance to play golf with me...and promptly killed all joy that I had found in the game. I might remind you that while all of my friends were terrible at golf, like me, my dad was not. This was a problem. I, like my father and my grandfather, am extremely competitive, so much so that it would bring me to tears if I didn't win. It wasn't that I felt as though crying would make the other people concede defeat; it was simply because I felt like a part of me died because I couldn't win. In hindsight, I should have been prepared to feel this feeling quite a bit the second I set foot on the course with my dad. Defeat after humiliating defeat ensued. I do believe that those rounds of golf were some of the most traumatic experiences of my childhood. Subsequently, my dreams of PGA supremacy faded and the golf clubs began to collect dust in the closet.

It took about eight years before golfing lured me back and like any good character in a sports movie, I was seeking redemption. Oh yes, I was older, smarter, and stronger. That little white ball would be my master no more, and most of all, I would beat my dad at his own game. This would be my time... I was wrong. So very wrong.

You see, the pivotal thing that I lacked at this age, and still do for the most part, was finesse. I thought that power would compensate for my lack of skill, but golf has a way of making strong guys look like flailing idiots. Charles Barkley is a good example of this and if you have not seen his swing, I suggest you look it up and have yourself a good laugh. I guess I'll just chalk up my oversight to the fact that my frontal lobe had not fully formed yet.

At this time I feel it is necessary to highlight the specific course where I felt my redemption would be achieved. This was a course sent directly from Hell to torment new or unskilled golfers. A veritable wall of trees stood about a foot from either side of the fairway, devious water traps, and houses built so close to the course that the eight hole teed off from some guy's living room. Basically speaking, this was not a course for beginners. Undetered, and incredibly unprepared, I started play. What followed was either the largest stage of unintentional comedy (apart from the State of the Union Address recently) or something akin to a car crash. It was horrible, but you couldn't bring yourself to look away.

And here we had the straw that broke the camel's back. It should be noted that I simply broke down. Not a Tanya Harding breakdown, more like those people who get so angry about something that they black-out and wind up in a state mental facility without remembering that they blew up their own house. And it all started so innocently with me. I thought that time and strength would cure my world-class slice. But golf is a merciless master and I would not have straight drives. Oh no. I would have a slice that would curve so viciously to the right that I would practically have to tee off facing 90 degrees to the left. I had no idea how bad it would become.

Shrugging off the first five or six drives that went sailing right into those dark woods, never to be seen by mortal eyes again, I could feel the anger begin to grow. And after watching my father produce clean, beautiful shots that flew straight as an arrow, always landing in a prime spot, my teeth began to grind. I swear, after he swung and the ball had bent to his will, if I had looked up in the sky, it would not have surprised me if I saw Jesus giving him a big cheesy grin and a thumbs-up.

By the sixth hole or so, I was really beginning to get to the point where I should have walked away. It was at this juncture that I began to have a permanent sneer etched into my mouth and I began to display something that I like to call, "Situational Tourrette's Syndrome". This only occurs when I play golf and the longer I play, the more I begin to start mixing and matching swear words and crude terms until nothing really makes sense that comes out of my mouth. Drenched in a cold sweat and saying horrible things about the condition of a grapefruit and an avacado, I continued to play. And then it happened, I hit a semi-decent shot. Always quick to congratulate, and then teach, Dad jumped in to tell me what I was doing wrong. Biting my tongue to suppress anything that would make me have to walk home, I tried to do everything exactly the way he had said. I failed and some poor squirrel 100 yards deep in the forest to the right of the fairway lost his life that day. But, the final hammer had not yet fallen on my golfing career.

Ever the instructor, my father then felt it would be best if he showed me exactly what to do. In most father-son relationships, this would be no problem. However, my dad is left-handed and I am right-handed. He proceeds to pick up one of my clubs, tees up right handed and hits a perfect shot. This, friends, was not just salt in the wound for me. No, this was being skinned alive and thrown into the Dead Sea. It is a well-known fact that I throw, kick, shoot, and spit like a six-year old girl left-handed and here he is doing it better than I could with his off-hand! I believe that it was at this time that I developed a chronic tic in my eye. If I were not playing with rented clubs, I believe I would have begun to create lawn art with the broken bodies of my irons. Furious, my day was over.

I don't play golf anymore. After that vacation, I walked away. In fact, the last time I was on a golf course, I was pulling my dad's cart. I was back where I started, beaten and humbled like one of those old boxers who shake and mutter because they were concussed a few too many times.

I blame homeschooling...

and I believe that I'm going to go and make friends with a tree.

Most likely a maple.

I hear they're nice.