FATHERS & SONS BY DAVID SANDS
I can still recall the extreme exhilaration and the crushing disappointment of my first round of golf with my dad.
It was at the local municipal course, which most rounds were those days when you were either a country club member or a muni player. The time: 5:45 a.m., a reflection of my father's Air Force background and predilection for pre-dawn tee times. (To this day, I expect every putt to throw up a rooster's tail of dew and have difficulty reading dry greens.)
Just into my teens, I remember being giddy at the prospect of a round of golf, having been raised on and marked the seasons by a regular diet of baseball, football and basketball. If there was any trepidation when my dad pulled but one bag of clubs and one collapsible pull cart from the back of the station wagon, it doesn't register today. But by the time we had made our way to the first tee, the sickening truth - like the day itself - began to dawn.
I was caddying.
 Aside from the surprise factor, this struck me as about as much fun as mowing the lawn, except I was expected to pull the equipment instead of push it, there was no cool ignition cord to yank, and - I also quickly learned - I wasn't getting paid. Still, having seen in the ensuing decades the atrocities perpetrated by fathers sending their sons out to hack without any prior preparation, I have come to appreciate my dad's method.
In just nine holes on a humid summer morning - we finished by about 7:45 a.m., as I recall - I picked up about 90 percent of what one needs to know to acquit oneself honorably on any course in the world, from Pebble Beach to, well, that local muni. To wit: Watch your ball after you hit it; be ready when it's your turn; don't be bashful when yelling "Fore!" saying nothing is usually preferable to saying anything; keep quiet and keep still when your partner is hitting; be grateful for your good shots and philosophical about your bad ones, and consoling or complimentary - as the situation warrants - about your partners' fortunes; appreciate the fresh air, the green surroundings and the occasional woodpecker without being distracted by them; keep track of your strokes; and always put the flag back where you found it.
There's actually a kind of purity to my father's brand of golf, for he's never been much of a follower of organized sports. He doesn't read the sports pages, doesn't know the latest Ryder Cup standings, and typically preferred yard work or fiddling with the family car while my mother, my brothers and I watched whatever game, match, tournament or race was on television. I actually felt a twinge of disappointment when he acquired his first set of fancy metal woods after having gotten by with persimmons all through his five children's tuition years.
I can't say my golf game owes much to him; my mediocrity I achieved on my own. But I do think he helped my brothers and me get a good start on how to enjoy the game - no clubs wrapped around trees or tossed into water hazards, no superfluous profanity, no violent mood swings tied to the result of one's last shot. I typically don't play my best while playing with my dad and typically don't mind that much.
Having achieved some unlikely clout as - of all things - a golf writer, I recently wangled an invitation for my folks and me at one of the area's top upscale daily-fee courses, one of those monstrously macho layouts with a slope rating that could boil water.
Of course, we were all overmatched, shooting a combined 32 on the second hole alone (our best-ball score for the hole would have been a quintuple bogey), but nobody seemed to mind. My mother, an equally avid golfer, brings a similarly mature attitude toward the game's ups and downs. The walk was invigorating, the views stunning, a few putts actually dropped, and even the lowering skies and persistent drizzle couldn't spoil the day.
One thing I have inherited from my dad is a noble scalp notably lacking in hair cover. Going for that Pete Rozelle tan, I had neglected to bring a hat and my discomfort increased with the dropping temperatures and the rising intensity of the rain. My folks had enjoyed about as much as they could stand after 15 holes and, feeling about 7 years old again, I asked to borrow my dad's porkpie hat while I closed out the round alone.
Having seen them off, I proceeded to hit my best tee ball of the day, landing just on the fringe of the par-3 16th. An efficient chip and a tap-in later, I had the day's first par. With the rain out of my eyes and the heat loss through my skull cut by 90 percent, I reeled off two more solid holes to finish par-bogey-par. It was the best we'd played in months, my dad's hat and I.
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