Lee Bacchus Looks At Golf

Some Early Resolutions for 2002

We have now officially entered the "cat-and-dog days" of the golf season. That is, the season when it¹s often raining cats and dogs.

It¹s also that time when TV golf has been reduced to Skins events and other made-for-TV corporate shills, and when the climate in most parts of the continent seems less accommodating for links and more suited to racing swamp-buggies.

For me, it¹s always a time to pause, contemplate my role in this grand old game, and to compile a list of resolutions for the next season. Not that any part of my game or my demeanor really needs altering, but I guess even perfection needs fine tuning now and again.

So here then are my golf resolutions for 2002:

• 1. I resolve never again, while experiencing a blinding hangover, to purchase a sausage roll from the clubhouse snack bar and hurriedly ingest it while rushing to the first tee.

• 2. I resolve, when staring at a 200-yard carry over a reedy creek, to smugly reach for my three-wood and brashly announce to my playing companions, "God hates a coward." Because he hates arrogant morons even worse.

• 3. I resolve never again to rest a can of Mountain Dew on my bag, or to topple its contents into my bag, when I forget I rested it there.

• 4. I resolve to never again employ a golf "teaching aid" that looks suspiciously like an S&M sex toy.

• 5. I resolve to never again, after purchasing a sausage roll from the clubhouse snack bar and hurriedly ingest it while rushing to the first tee, to then later vomit its contents on my partner¹s Footjoys.

• 6. I resolve to never again convince myself that after a good session at the range the "next round I play" will "probably be in the low ‘70s."

• 7. I resolve that after a good session at the range and convincing myself that I will shoot in the low '70s and then in reality shooting a 97, to never again hit myself on the head with my putter.

• 8. I resolve to never again play a game of skins with any evil 78-year-old who without any scruples whatsoever withholds the fact he is a former British Columbia senior champion.

• 9. I resolve to never again drive farther than 10 miles to a golf course in order to feel miserable later.

• 10. I resolve to never again purchase a dozen exorbitantly priced Titleist Pro-V1 balls before heading off to a course called "Mayfair Lakes."