I recently published a book titled “Nature Is Our Country Club, How Golf Explains Sustainability in a Changing World.” The book draws on years of association with the game of golf starting when I was a little kid crawling around the greens of Seneca Falls Country Club in Upstate New York. My parents had a membership at that golf course and raised us to enjoy the game by playing less expensive public courses as we learned how to use the clubs for different purposes.

Most people would call me a “decent golfer” shooting from 12-15 over par most rounds. I typically hit my drives 250-275 yards and can putt pretty well. I still use a Bullseye putter my father made from Golfsmith supplies over thirty years ago. I suppose there are better putting instruments and I’ve used expensive Callaway blades while renting clubs at Southern Hills, a posh Florida country club near Spring Hill north of Tampa.

Holed Out

Put it this way, during most rounds I don’t embarrass myself too badly. I shot a 42 for nine-holes recently at Pottawatomie Golf Course in St. Charles. Ugh, I had a 7 on the first and last holes. So there was a touch of peripatetic golf on the bookends of the day, but I hit some fine drives and a series of really great 7 and 8-irons close to the hole for a string of pars. The Highlight of the day was a one birdie in which I holed out with a shot over water from 110 yards out. That was fun.

When our family moved from New York to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1962, our house was 100 yards away from Meadia Heights Golf Club, a prestigious course where my folks could not afford a full membership. Instead, we had an “associate membership” so that we could swim at the club pool and that was fine with me.

On rainy days, I’d sneak onto the Meadia Heights course carrying a three-wood, a seven-iron, and a putter to play golf. I had a huge collection of golf balls gathered from my travels back and forth to my best friend’s house on the 17th hole. That collection included every brand of golf ball in numbered sets. I stored them in egg cartons and used any extras to play golf myself. If no thunder or lightning were going on, just a steady rain, my secret rounds of golf were a clandestine pleasure I shared with no one and didn’t care to.

Running around the golf course

At that age, the feel of bare feet on wet grass was sensual and enlivening. I’d run from shot to shot, caught up in the thrill of playing golf alone without anyone checking my score or telling me the rules. I had principles, you see, and told myself to be honest about the number of shots because lying about didn’t feel good. I’d use the plentiful supply of discarded golf tees for my drives and loved watching a rooster tail of spray shoot up as my ball rolled down the fairway.

I’ll admit to stripping off my clothes sometimes run around the wet fairways naked and alive. That wasn’t the only time I got naked in the rain. One day during a heavy rainstorm my best friend and I were sitting inside looking out the picture window at the 17th fairway behind his house as the skies opened up and water began running down the fairway in small rivers. Suddenly a spring burst open in the ground and water bubbled out in huge amounts. We looked at each other momentarily, stripped off our shirts and ran outside to take a look at the aquatic event. He took a few steps back, ran at the spring and slid onto the fairway like he was stealing second base. His momentum on the smooth fairway turned the scene into a giant Slip ‘N Slide. I went next. After a few trips our shorts were soaked and bunched up, so we both stripped them off and went running as the rain kept pouring down and the spring erupted even more. His sisters showed up in the sideyard to watch. For a moment I felt chagrined at being naked but laughed it off and kept sliding in the cool, clear water.

Naked truth

Life is good when you don’t live it in fear of being naked on many levels. For too long Americans have been prurient in their lusts but prudish in their habits. These days, women are showing their butts in public more than ever with thong swimsuits and taking control of their body image in call kinds of ways. The triathlon community, where I spend considerable time, doesn’t give a rip when bodies are exposed in one way or another. That’s healthy.

If you can’t tell by now, I’m drawing a parallel between being honest in golf and being honest about our bodies and other things in life. The golf industry finally had its “Come to Jesus” moment about forty years ago when the naked truth about the toxicity of golf courses became known.

My book Nature Is Our Country Club chronicles the fact that when golf courses were exposed as highly toxic environments due to the overuse of chemical pesticides and herbicides, the game was forced to clean up its act or risk poisoning the people who played golf and the communities around them. There are many other issues golf is facing that impact its future. Water usage is one critical component of golf’s sustainability. A single golf course in the Arizona desert uses one million gallons per day to keep a course green. In a world where climate change and water shortages are affecting huge populations of people, golf needs to figure out its communal and economic role or risk going away entirely in some places. I write about the fact that many golf courses have gone under, and interviewed a former distance runner who visits defunct golf courses around the Midwest. What do they tell us about golf’s future prospects?

The State of Golf

The difficult part about the changes in the State of Golf is that people with opposing environmental views are being asked to work together. The “tree huggers” who care deeply about environmental sustainability are being met in the middle by people with a deep love for golf who realize that golf’s economics are better when native landscaping and wetland protection are incorporated in golf course architecture and management.

As for me, my habit of running around the golf course when I was a kid took on different forms as I matured into a runner from high school through college and beyond. In the 1970s, many cross-country meets were held on golf courses. My familiarity with smooth fairways and rolling terrain made it easy for me to transition to racing on golf layouts. I do recall one meet at an Oregon (IL) course where the hills got the best of me. I was just a freshman running varsity and we had three meets a weeks all season long. By mid-season, my skinny 14-year-old legs were tired and I stopped mid-race. Our assistant Coach Larry Eddington found me crouched in the rough exhausted and near tears. “Don’t worry,” he told me. “You’re doing an amazing job this year.”

During my senior year in college I led the field in the Grinnell Invitational against our rival Central College. By then I’d gained so much experience and was confident enough to take the first mile out in under five minutes. I recall some golfers watching us roll by in a long line, young men shining in the September morning sun. I didn’t win that day, but finished as our third man that morning and helped lead the team to a second-place NCAA Division III Nationals Cross Country Championship.

After the race I cooled down by jogging a mile alone on the golf course. The smell of freshly mown grass was all around, and the morning dew had burned off just as I’d seen it go so many times on the courses where I’d grown up golfing, running around friends, and finally competing in a sport I loved and continue to love well into my late 60s.

I’m talking about running, and also golf. Because a little bit of golf never hurt anyone.

If you’d like to order a copy of my new book Nature Is Our Country Club, click the title and you can order a copy on Amazon.com.