The sun was shining, the birds were singing. This was going to be great!

“Do you like my golf skirt?” I asked Fred, twirling around while he did something with a golf ball and a tiny white tee on the fake grass pad.

“Yes,” he mumbled, scanning the horizon. “Now, line up here, spread your feet hip-distance apart, look at the ball, draw your arm back, keep your elbow straight when you swing, and follow through. Go easy.”

It was a lot to take in, but I was game. I swung and scanned the horizon with my hand shading my eyes, just like Kate Blanchett as Katherine Hepburn when she went golfing with Leo DiCaprio in The Aviator. I wanted to let out a Katherine-esque “Good golly, I think it sprouted wings and flew off. Who’s for a dry martini?”

Nothing. My ball was still sitting there. 

I looked down – my ball was taunting me, still sitting on its tee.

“That’s ok,” Fred said, getting behind me and wrapping his arms around me as if we were on a date.

With exaggerated step-by-step movements, as if talking to a toddler, he showed me how to properly swing the club. He was instructing me, not hugging me. Just then one of my friends drove by and tooted her horn. “I’m golfing,” I yelled after her.

I swung again, and this time the ball dribbled off the tee and rolled right onto the grass in front of me. I sighed. It was getting hot out.

“We should hit the course now, see how it goes,” I told Fred.

I was thinking: I’m a parent. If you can’t go at warp speed, God be with you.

Fred coughed. “You can’t go on the course until you can drive to the green. You might not actually golf for several more visits.”

“What?” I said. Sweat was trickling down my back. “I am golfing now, Mister. Run and get the cart while I take a few more swings.”

Fred and I are different. When we paint a room, he spends hours prepping, applying blue tape, lining up tools, putting down drop cloths. I run in, grab a roller and, with my purse still on my shoulder, knock out an entire wall. As I prepped another ball by popping it onto the tee, Fred said, “There’s another part of golf you might like. Lunch and wine.”

I can tell – I’m going to like golf.

Fred is seriously tickled that I want to play golf and is very supportive. So is my 16-year-old, who plays varsity golf. But my two older sons are worried – not because golf will take me away from hearth and home.

They’re worried for the other golfers out there. They think I will hit one.

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