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Slugfeld: Effective Therapy for [a Former] Obsession By Michael K. Golay [I should mention that this was written in the summer of 1998, and a lot of things have changed since then. I don't really play golf these days, I no longer live on a golf course, Seinfeld is back doing standup, Jason Alexander is selling KFC, and she's not my girlfriend anymore. Still, many have read and continue to read this, so I leave it up for posterity.] So I'm camped out in front of the boob tube, like millions of other Americans, watching the Seinfeld finale. And it sucks. I never really found the show all that funny, I must admit. "What's the deal with this?" "What's the deal with that?" I'll tell you what the deal is. Jerry's got a thing for little girls with gigantic breasts and myriad other women way out of his league. That's the deal. Meanwhile, George rages. Elaine shoves someone. Kramer falls down. I could get the same thing from Charlie Chaplin films (which I actually like), minus the annoying banter. Of course, now that I think of it, Chaplin liked little girls too... Anyhoo, I tuned in anyway, because, well, I'm a consumer. I consume. And if NBC wants my attention as bad as they seemed to want it over the last couple of weeks, well, then who am I to say no to their Jerry? It's Thursday night, the Big Night, the Grand Farewell, and I'm watching, and the show is sucking. So I decide, "Hey, I do believe I'll work on my putting stroke." If this strikes you as odd, then you obviously do not play golf. If you play golf, you've understood my point immediately. In fact, if you play golf, you are in all likelihood working on your putting stroke at this very moment. My girlfriend, who just barely puts up with my golf obsession, who takes pleasure in ridiculing my interest in the pros and cons of various turfgrass usage, relative quality of bunker sand and agronomy in general, not to mention my eternal pursuit of the perfect forward press before beginning the backswing, or my interest in the Brothers Beryllium: copper and nickel, and their effect on ball flight and feedback through the shaft and to the hands... My girlfriend thinks I need help. And maybe she's right. I have a problem. I know it. But, quite obviously, if I could just improve my putting, then golf would become a much easier game, and I would be able to concentrate on other things. Right? This is how the golf-obsessed deals with his addiction. He rationalizes mindlessly endless work on his game by telling himself, essentially, "If I can just get this stuff down so it's natural, if I can just feel the clubhead in balance through the entire swing, if I can just swing the club - not hit the ball, if I can just putt with the arms and shoulders and center my eyes directly over the ball, if I can just de-loft the club slightly on this chip and sweep through but not under the ball, if I can just grip lightly like I am holding a wounded bird, if I can just set up with the left shoulder a little higher to encourage a slight right-to-left ball flight, if I can just keep my swing plane on line and point the butt end of the club to the ball at the beginning of the downswing, if I can just remember to never underclub - always take one club more and swing easier, if I can just remember to imagine a balloon between my knees and pop that imaginary balloon with my right knee while driving it toward the target on the through-swing... well, then I'd be able to come to work and actually do some, rather than sit at work, doing none, and write about my golf obsession." If I could just become a master of golf through diligent and fervent practice, then I would become a complete person and thus be able to have a normal life and be a productive member of society. If I could just get my golf game under control, then I wouldn't have to practice so much. You see? Doesn't this make perfect sense? It does I tells ya. It does... This is what the golf-obsessed says. This is what the golf-obsessed thinks. This is what the golf-obsessed does. At any rate, my increasingly less tolerant girlfriend, caught up in inexplicable and uncharacteristic enabling of my obsession, bought me one of those automatic electronic putting cup dealies last year. You plug it in, and you putt a ball into it, and if you put the ball into the cup, it shoots the ball back to you. And you putt again, and it shoots the ball back. And you putt, and it shoots. Putt. Shoot. Putt. Shoot. Rhythmically. Until you are in a trance. And everyone within earshot wants to kill you. Now, this thing is kinda loud, and I'll admit that it's probably pretty annoying to listen to. First there's the little click sound of the putter (Titleist Scotty Cameron Newport II, oilcan finish) making contact with the ball (Titleist Tour Distance 90 compression marked with three black dots - "That's me!"), then the sound of the ball entering the cup, then the piercing clack sound of the machine returning the ball. There's essentially a tiny firing pin in there that, when it senses pressure (like a golf ball), just fires. Wantonly. Hard. Don't stick your finger in there. Bad idea. The golf-obsessed knows from experience. I'd venture to say the putting machine would get on most people's nerves. Except one person. Well, not a person, per se. A cat. Our cat, Lucy. My girlfriend's cat, actually, but she's become at least partly mine over the last couple of years. Lucy is actually intrigued by the contraption, and whenever I plug it in and practice my putts, she'll come galloping in (she's a little overweight - we don't feed her much, all low-fat sciencefood, but she doesn't do much with herself other than sleep and take the occasional hunk of flesh out of your arm when you try to pet her) and crouch down behind the machine. I'll putt, the ball will enter the cup, shoot out, and so will Lucy, chasing down the ball. She'll catch it, then kick it to me. And she almost always lets the putt sink first, which is obviously critical. It's very convenient. I get to practice my putting, and Lucy gets off her fat ass and gets some exercise. (I love the cat, okay?) Flash forward. It was 9:30pm or so. My girlfriend (who doesn't ever watch Seinfeld, actually) was across town at a Seinfeld goodbye party thrown by a co-worker. I begged off, for imminently evident reasons of my own (see first through fifth paragraphs above). So I was free to putt and run the cat around. So I take the putting machine out, and I plug it in, and I start putting from about 10 feet. I'm watching the Soup Nazi out of the corner of my eye because this is history and all (I have the final MASH and the final Tonight Show on tape, not to mention the final Magnum PI, but not the final Seinfeld), but mainly, I'm putting. And I'm sinking everything. The stroke feels good. I back up to 15 feet. Still sinking them. Lucy's happy, running around, chasing and kicking balls. I move back to 20 feet. Mark O'Meara sink-o-rama. Just killin'. But I'm noticing this groove working into the carpet, and I'm starting to wonder how much of a factor it is in my making these putts. I start to doubt myself. I'm still sinking the putts, but I'm getting uneasy. Can I putt, or can't I? Well, I do live on a golf course, I hasten to mention. Yes I do. With my girlfriend, who said it was okay. So, I repeat, I live on a golf course. My living room overlooks an uphill 550-yard dogleg right par 5. Fourth hole on my home course. And I'm looking out there into the night, I've stopped putting, and I'm thinking about the very nice green on the par three third hole, which is about 150 yards back from the tee box on four. And it's 10:30pm by now, and Seinfeld's off, and my girlfriend's not back yet, and it's a little stuffy in the apartment, and I'm thinking fresh air would do a body good. So I slip on some pants and a t-shirt, put on a cap, and velcro my Teva sandals onto my bare feet. I grab my putter and three balls, leave a note for the girlfriend, and I head out. Through the darkness, down the already dewy slope to the cart path on the fourth hole. I take the path back through a tunnel under a roadway to the third hole. It's pretty muddy, because it's been raining for 40 days and 40 nights in the Washington D.C. area, and I'm cautiously descending the railroad tie stairs to the fringe around the green, which had been re-sodded recently and has been quite soggy. Turned out it was still quite soggy. Fetid, in fact, as was evidenced by the slime that gushed in between my bare foot and sandal, much like that shot of Texas crude bubbling up from the ground on the Beverly Hillbillies credits from so many years ago. It was thick, viscous stuff, whatever it was, and it was oozing around underfoot, quite literally. But no matter. Within seconds I was on the green with putter cover removed, golf balls on the surface, smoothly stroking putts from 10-15 feet out there in the pitch black with only moonlight softly illuminating the green. And the putts were going in. One after the other I was sinking them. Not all of them were going in, but most were, and if I was missing, it was a near miss. Not tragically off-line like when I play a round in the daylight with witnesses, who gnash their teeth and wail loudly as they are forced to watch my stabbing, pathetic flat-stickery. But out there in the night on the pretty little par three I was having a grand old time. There was still a little ooze between my foot and sandal that was making me a little uncomfortable, and the cool night air was accentuating the sensation, but the putts, baby, the putts! Now, I should mention that this green backs up to a roadway. It's a hole dug into the side of a hill, and the hill stretches up to the road. So I'm blissfully below traffic, mostly out of sight. Still, when the very occasional car would drive by, out of reactionary instinct, I'd duck. I mean, I love golf, golf loves me, but you're really not supposed to be putting on a green on a semi-private golf course at 11pm. The car would come by, I'd duck. Come by, duck. Every couple of minutes. Because of the slope of the hill and the average height of the cars, most drivers couldn't see me anyway. Except for the sport-ute that came by. A Ford Expedition - a hulk-a-truck. The guy driving it definitely sees me hunkering down there. And he slows down, looks, watches. Finally drives off. No worries. But while I was crouched down there, something on the green caught my eye. There was something shiny on the green, just a few feet from where I was bent over. Long, thin. Looked like a snake for chrissake. I don't like snakes, but I'm thinking it must be a garter snake or something. Too small to be anything else. And garter snakes are harmless. Everyone knows that. But this snake is moving pretty slow. Really slow. And it's not slithering, really, there's no hip movement to this snake. No graceful "s" shape to its transit. This snake is just, well, glopping along, I guess you could say. Only thing moving was its head. The head would raise, stretch forward slightly, lower itself to the green and attach to the grass, then the rest of the body would glop forward a centimeter or so at a time. All of these thoughts came to me in five seconds or less. Then I realized what it was. This was no snake. This was a slug. Now, I hate slugs, and I could go on and on about my hatred for and fear of slugs (far more so than snakes, this much I will tell you for free), but I've whinged on long enough, so I'll wrap this up. So there's a slug on the green, and I'm nearly barefoot. I'm in sandals, and this slug could get me. So I look at the slug, and it's moving just barely, and I think, "Well hell. It's a slug, okay?" And I'm sinking these beauty putts. And it's great out here, other than the slug thing. And it's just one slug, and it seems to be minding its own business. So I move to the other side of the green, drop my three balls over there, and putt the first one. It moves steadily toward the hole for about five feet, holding its line. Then, suddenly, it takes a little hop and skitters off right, missing the hole by a foot or more. "Hmmm. Must have been spooked by the slug," I think. I line up the second putt, stroke it, and it almost immediately takes a weird hop and heads off way left. "Hmmm. Must have broke the wrists coming through the ball," I think. I move over a couple of feet, line up the third putt and stroke the ball. It heads straight toward the hole, I'm pleased as it tracks its way to the cup, Titleist label rolling over and over itself, moving steadily 10 feet, until, just inches before it settles into the jar, the ball literally jumps into the air as if it has been launched off a miniature ramp, and clears the hole completely, landing on the other side and stopping abruptly like a tiny, spherical Evel Knievel. I can't believe it. I was putting so well, and now this. So I walk over to the daredevil ball, and I stoop to pick it up. And as I'm bending over, I notice a black mark on the ball, and I think, well, the ball must have picked up something on the way to the hole, and that's why it took that little jump there. There's a clump of black dirt on my ball. I'm just about to touch the ball, when the black dirt moves. I back off immediately. Then I come in for a closer look. The black dirt is removing itself from my ball. I look around a couple foot radius from the cup, and in the moonlight I can just barely detect something moving on the green. My vision starts to clear, and my brain starts to process the information. And then everything became lucid and horrible and rotten and filthy. I began to make out a veritable sea of slugs, all moving across the green like waves washing into a beach. It was disgusting. There were hundreds upon hundreds of creepy crawlers out there - the green was absolutely covered. There were at least five slugs per square foot, glopping along toward some greater goal, I had to assume. I had been squishing around on them for at least ten minutes. I quickly went to my ball, hoped like hell there wasn't anything attached to it, wiped it off on a slugless patch of green I was lucky enough to find, and put it in my pocket. I tiptoed to my other balls, performed the same drill with them, put them in my pocket, and quickly but carefully Baryshnikoved off the putting surface, up the railroad ties, through the grass to the roadway. Goose pimples covered my body. I'm a wimp, I know, but these were slugs on the green, okay? And I was putting so well. What are the odds on either occurring regularly, I ask you? Through the entire ordeal, the muck between my bare foot and sandal continued to tingle and squish. As I approached a streetlight, I feared the worst. Leaning against the lamppost, I reluctantly raised my foot up to the light for inspection. Three little baby slugs were happily nesting between my toes. I grabbed a clump of grass and smothered the sons of bitches. Fuck PETA. When I got back home, I cleaned my senselessly expensive putter first (more evidence of golf obsession). I had removed my sandals and was taking off my pants when my girlfriend arrived. I said a cursory hello and headed for the shower, where I cleaned my entire person with a religious fervor hitherto unknown. I emerged from the bathroom and explained the story to my girlfriend. Her two exact comments follow: 1. "Poor slugs." 2. "Putting in the dark. You're obsessed." And she, as is often the case, would be right. »Back to Etc.