greenjackets

I hate golf.

The one time I tried to play, I was partnered with a girl two years younger than me who would grow up to be one of the best female golfers in the state. At the time, she was just an 11-year old who was kicking my ass. I used bright-yellow balls that were easier to find in the weeds, but that didn't help matters. I'm not entirely sure what a mulligan is, but I think I took more than my fair share. It's a good thing I wasn't old enough to actively curse yet, because I probably would have been banned for life for unladylike behavior.

Unfortunately I grew up in an area that was wild about golf, and even more so than your average suburban town with too much money. You see, a few miles from the hospital where I was born is the Augusta National, the golf club famous for either the Masters tournament or refusing to admit women, depending on who you ask. Either way, I'm sure attended the only school district in the country whose spring break schedule is determined by a golf tournament.

When I was younger everything revolved around the Masters when the time came, whether I was going or not. If I didn't get to go, it meant being babysat while my parents did or being forced to watch it on television. When I did go, it meant wearing preppy clothes, parking in a stranger's yard and walking around a blazing-hot golf course trying to peek over heads and get a glimpse of Ernie Els' nine-iron. I had no interest. I hated golf. The one detail I can remember from all of these trips is when, around the age of 9, I got violently ill from a ham sandwich I bought at the Masters. I spent hours wallowing under pine trees along the back nine and, once we got home, I vomited all over the rug.

My Masters days ended a little before I went to college, when my family started renting out our house and our Masters tickets to golf fans from Canada. We never see them and they never see us, though one year they bought us a new coffeemaker for some reason, and now it's in my kitchen. When I left for college I began telling people I was from Aiken, South Carolina, "near Augusta, Georgia if you're a golf fan," and usually even that drew blank stares. Turns out at a liberal arts college famous for its war protests and naked parties, no one gives a damn about Ernie Els.

Every spring, though, right around the time Connecticut gets its last snowfall and South Carolina's azalea blossoms start to bloom, my mom sends me links to Masters photos online. They practically make me sick, and not in that bad-ham-sandwich kind of way. Just looking at the shots from Amen Corner I remember exactly what April is supposed to be like, bright and bursting with purple and pink azaleas, hot enough for shorts but too early in the season to even care. I've gotten over my resentment of early-April snowstorms but not the azaleas; though I'm not sure I'll ever live in the South again, it'll never really feel like springtime without them.

This year I watched the last three hours of the Masters on TV, gasping and cheering along with the crowd as Phil Mickelson pulled ahead to win for the second time. I shocked myself at how much I remembered, sitting in the stands at the end of the long 16th green or in the wide open space at the 18th. Every time they showed that big green and white leaderboard my heart yelled a little "I've been there!" I can't explain why then, for the first time in my life, golf grabbed me, or how I even managed to pick up the scoring rules of the game, given how much time I spent actively ignoring it. But Bobby Jones and Jack Nicklaus and Fred Couples are names that are a part of me, whatever that means, and when the first week of April rolls around there's that little Southern magnet in me that perks up and pays attention.

I still hate golf, and God help me if I ever hold a four-iron again. I don't know that my feminist liberal college-graduate self likes being represented by the sport of middle-aged white men, but there you have it. I may never go to the Masters again and will almost certainly never care about the PGA tour, but I will probably never be able to ignore the Augusta National. Every April I'll turn on my TV and hear those hushed, reverent voices talking over a man in a polo shirt, and I'll remember; I'll stop, take a little bow toward the screen, and take comfort in remembering where I come from.

If Hootie Johnson knew his golf club had raised a daughter with no interest in golf, he'd probably pass out. I'll take comfort in remembering that too.