The American Spectator

The United States Golf Association (USGA) has been running a commercial for years. In it, two young guys sit with their golf bags on a bench outside a tiny starter’s shack, under an overhanging roof. The rain pours down.

“This is nothing,” one golfer asserts. “Couple of minutes it’ll let up, and we’ll be golfing, my friend.”

Cut to:

It’s raining harder.

“Just a passing shower,” says the optimist.

Cut to:

Absolute downpour. Friend gets up and leaves.

“Hey! Where ya goin’?” wails the weather optimist.

Cut to:

Weather optimist sitting all alone, dejectedly. Another golfer shows up and asks, “You a single?”

“You bet!” says the optimist, all happiness again as the rain thunders down.

Eight days ago, my wife and I had our first Sunday golfing date in a long time. Too long. The weather was iffy, the way it’s been all over the northeast all spring. We had found a lovely nearby course that lets you play unlimited holes for $20 after 4:00 p.m. on Sundays, just our speed, and, despite a gentle rain, had motored off with our spirits high.

My game has gone to hell over about a four-year period, starting with a torn right rotator cuff. (Moral: Never lift a woman’s suitcase without trying out its heft first.) Then my transplanted kidney started to fail and I got weak. My swing collapsed, specifically my backswing as I reacted to the pain of lifting my arms up and to the right. Twenty years of prednisone finally took their toll on my tendons. Example: my spreading feet are now a size bigger than they have been in all the years of my earlier life. We had another child. We moved. All sorts of things.

And our long-standing Sunday date disappeared, too.

Sally knows the commercial as well as I do. “Just a passing shower,” I said as we drove to the course. “Couple of minutes, it’ll clear right up. And we’ll be golfing, my friend.”