This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Guess what?

The Wall Street Journal, busy with stories on prospects for inflation, general economic ups and downs, and the war in Ukraine, found time a few days ago to publish a major section on golf.

Yes, golf.

Why?

Well, the coverage presented a diversion from a variety of tough events, which normally occupy our time and attention.  For me, I am golf lover, so I appreciated the coverage.

Here are a couple excerpts, with my comments in each case.

• Timothy Carroll, a Wall Street Journal reporter, led the coverage with a great piece under this headline:  Why I Love Golf—and What It Has Meant for My Life; Confessions of a golf fanatic after five decades of playing.

Good stuff.

Here is how Carroll started his lead story:

“I remember when I started playing golf.  And why.

“Tennis was the family sport.  There were eight of us kids—my two older brothers, five younger sisters, and me.  The older of the brothers played No. 1 on his college tennis team.  Our mother, now 92, would play into her 80s, still diving for balls.  We bought cans of tennis balls by the dozens. Everyone was expected to play.

“As a middle child, I had to find a way to stand out from my tennis-obsessed mother and siblings.  I also needed a game I could play by myself, since my older brothers never wanted to play anything I suggested.  So, just as my age odometer ticked over into double digits, I sought my own path.  I took up golf.

“I’m now 63 years old, and for the past five-plus decades, golf has been more than just an entertaining diversion, although it has been that, too.  It is why I started dating my wife of 32 years, and where I’ve gone to seek refuge from the stresses of daily life.  It has been a way to bond with my children and laugh with my friends.  It has satisfied my craving to be challenged, and comforted me during treatments for cancer.  It has been my big talk and my small talk.”

COMMENT:  I could make similar, though not identical, comments.  Golf has been, for me, an escape from the rigors of everyday life.  And, my wife, has allowed, even encouraged, this kind of respite.

She has spent more time in and around golf courses than she would care to remember – with me; with our son who became an excellent golfer, sufficient to win a college golf scholarship; and with our daughter who also played in high school.

Now, with three grandchildren, we play golf with them, too.

Golf also has prompted the formation of friendships that, yes, involve golf, but also go way beyond the sport.  Friends for life.

• Another story in the Wall Street Journal series appeared under this headline:  Most of What Makes a Golf Course Work Is Below the Surface:  The pristine surface that people see is a small part of the story.  None of it would be playable if it wasn’t for what’s going on underneath.

In this story, the writer, Bradley S. Klein, started his piece this way:

“Even for golfers who have played their own home course a thousand times, a familiarity with tee shots, approaches, putting and avoiding hazards is only a small piece of what they really confront.  Most of what it takes to make a golf course work is out of sight, buried below that pristine surface.

“A golf course these days comprises a dense network of infrastructure that makes it possible for the surface palette of material to function well—or not.  What shows up to the golfer as a playing field of tightly mowed turf-grass greens, fairways and tees surrounded by taller grass and sand-filled bunkers is just the surface manifestation of the underlying soil, root-zone mix, water chemistry, fertility, irrigation pipe, wire, and drainage channels.

“That smooth, seemingly flawless carpet of turf grass, cut to one-eighth or even one-tenth of an inch of its life for greens and under a half-inch for fairways?  If the soil, root structure, drainage, fertility, and chemistry weren’t perfectly tuned down below, the surface will be bumpy, the golf experience frustrating—and the course superintendent will get an earful from players.

COMMENT:  No doubt, two of my favorite golf course superintendents – Bill Swancutt, who held that position for 38 years at the course where I play, Illahe Hills Golf and Country Club in Salem, Oregon; and Steve Beyer, who now holds the position after Swancutt retired, would convey the same.

Eighty-five percent of golf course costs are the stuff underground that nobody sees, yet without all that infrastructure, golf would not work.  What’s beneath matters…deeply.

So, the Wall Street Journal series is worth reading.  Remember, I love golf so, yes, I am biased.  But, still a good read.