Fore my foot!

There are all sorts of great sportsmen that have passed through the annals of history. There are even some who got as far as being a footnote.

Choose your sport and go to it. It can be a physical one, such as grappling with sweaty men (or women) to pin them to the mat, an oh-so-Brit one such as putting the arrow in the eye of a board even though the board doesn't shoot back, a mental one such as the one between Kasparov and Big Blue (don't know that one? Don't worry; it was sooo boring that you haven't missed anything) or any combination of the above.

Some sports should be abolished altogether from the books; come on, guys, is there anyone who really wants to sit for hours watching cars go round and round? Shorten it to 15 minutes and just shoot the crashes as that is all that people actually come to watch.

Then there is the sport that wasn't. If you consider the traditional "sports", all of them require agility and/or cunning, either physical or mental. Even cribbage players use some innate cunning. One of these days, I am going to find out what cribbage really is.

Anyways, what do you do if you are sorely lacking in such or have an inane wish to not resort to sneakiness but want to show your abilities "out in the field of play"? Remember, you need stamina to run after that frisbee and the other guy may be able to run faster. So, all those people who had lost their lung and/or muscle capacities while they were clawing up the ladder of success needed some safe "sport" that fulfilled all the requirements while not giving any advantage to the other guy that he might have achieved by unfair means, like by actually exercising.

So, out they all went, ordered a cup of caffeine-free latte each and called in their secretaries to tell them to come up with something that required the least expenditure of physical and mental calories.

Some bloke came up with the idea of Golf. He was a Scottish bloke, which should give you some indication of his idea. Probably the Scots are still chuckling over it. It was an elaborate joke designed to appease the British lords and kings, so that could "play" a "sport" where they were guaranteed not to lose.

I kid you not. Really, truly. According to the rules, there is no "loser". Nor is there any "winner". I am not speaking figuratively; the players do not compete with each other, they play as a sort-of team in the sense that they are all playing together "against the course". Whatever that may mean in July. You see, each course is designed so that you complete it in the same number of shots; 72, that is. If the area is less, they put some trees in it so that you have to go around. So as not to make it too easy for the total imbecile, they leave some areas sandy and put water in others and call them traps. If your ball manages to roll into a trap, according to the rules, you can take the shot again from some other place. However, there is a wrinkle to avoid even that; say if your boss misses the wide open green and really is dumb enough to land his ball in the water, you shade your eyes, look in the other direction and say: “Tut, tut, too bad the wind shifted. You better try that shot again.”

On the other hand, hitting balls off in a tangent is advisable under certain circumstances. The most successful salesman was the guy who took his clients golfing and consistently missed a 3-foot putt by two inches.

Only some rules are sacred: don’t hit the other guy with a number 3 iron, never profess to not having time to golf (it is engraved in stone: Thou shalt miss department meetings on sunny days), and so on. Do take your time lying on the ground when the ball is within a hand span of the hole to “get a feel for the land”. Always saunter, never walk, to the next shot. Although breaking the windows of parked cars is understandable (sun in the eyes), there is only one unpardonable sin: Never, ever, ever swing and miss. That gets you an instant ejection from the grounds and your name struck from the rolls for eternity.

On with our spiel and let’s mull over how you actually play. Simple, really. Just hit the ball and get it into the hole. Try it yourself; go buy a couple of clubs. You really need only two; a “wood” and a “putter”. There is no difference between all those different woods and irons; golfers tote them around actually to publicize the size of the last cheque that they wrote. The putter is a small mallet that is the only club allowed on the green otherwise you could have used the wood there as well.

Don’t bother discussing the above with a golfer as he will deny it hotly and then hit you on the head with the number 3 iron. For empirical proof that there is no difference in the clubs, just deaden a few thousand brain cells by watching the next championship to check which player uses what. Make a chart. See any pattern? I bet not. They have such a hard time choosing that the current etiquette is to accept whatever club the caddy hands them. It’s not the malleability of the center of the club-head nor the color of the handle that transports the ball the greatest distance, despite all those fancy reviews, so there really is no justification to the excuses one hears in the club house. Have you figured out what it takes to hit the longest? Strength of arms. Yep, all those pseudo-scientific arguments of the wind-flow around the sand-trap near the fairway fail in the face of that one inalienable fact. Why is Tiger the champion of the world? Not because he has a better coach, but because he is the youngest of the lot.

That is the one unutterable, most blasphemous of truths that no one in the golfing world can hint at. That is the factor that all those other fogies in PGA deny and keep trying to figure out how to beat TW. Telling them so won’t work. It is a “sport” for rich people.

See, by the time they got rich, they were old and have heart bypasses and… did I already mention this? Anyway, thus the rules of golf. The first rule is not “no pain, no gain”, rather, it is: “no pain, no pain”. Walking for exercise is when you set up a pace and walk for miles, not when you saunter to the tee and spend half an hour standing around, bragging about the 2-under-par you had last year. If even that stately progress threatens to reduce the fat in your calves and replace it with a hint of muscle, you can, and must, hire one of those little go-carts to take you to the next hole.

Correct attire is important to learn for the wannabe-golfers. Jeans and joggers are actually banned. What on earth for? I tried to find out, but they evicted me from the club even for asking. I guess it’s because Mr. …, the president of the club, couldn’t find a pair of jeans in his size. You can’t make any fun of the clothes that they wear as there was a world-wide campaign for two generations wherein they wore baggy plaid pants and floppy caps that no one accepts as manufacturing, even under oath, and any descendant of anyone who poked fun as a result of even that extreme provocation is now genetically branded and guard dogs at the club gates are trained in silent ways to commit severe bodily harm should one try to pass them.

As to equipment, despite what I said earlier, buy a full set and a bag to put them in. Get second-hand clubs, they are cheaper and will make you look like a long time player. The bag, however, has to be brand-new. No excuses.

Once attired and equipped, start playing. Never say that you are a beginner, instead say that you have a high handicap. A “handicap” means that although it is stipulated that everyone can play equally good (or bad) as the other, some people are less equal than others and need a fudge-factor to bring their score level with the pros.

Hit the ball towards the green. Get to the green. Pot the ball. Done. That’s it. What can be easier than that? That’s all there really is to this “sport”. Shake hands in a cordial manner with the other players as there is no crowing done by the winner and no tremble in the lip of the loser. No winner or loser, remember?

That wraps my commentary on golf. Can’t write any more as I have to tee off in a while. Share this with others if you want, but please leave the author’s name as ‘anonymous’ as I have no wish to be black-listed from the clubs here. You might well ask: “If this guy is so anti-golf, why does he play?”. What else should I do on week-ends? Go sailing?

Sailing in Karachi

How to spend your weekend - and weekdays, for that matter - if you are adventuriously challanged? Or even if you are a couch potato or just plain lazy.

This is a question that creeps up in many a Karachiite's mind every so often, only to be quickly suppressed again. After all, what options do we have? One can eat only so many burgers and strip the flesh from only so many chicken. Well, not in the case of Omar, whose epitite is legendary.

Ok. The rest of us.

Karachi is not the most fun of cities. The beach is far away and once a year is enough of an ordeal. The only other option is to have burgers at ... Uh, I already mentioned that, didn't I?

I was pulled out of my couch where I had been watching a movie by SO & AO and taken to the Marina Club last weekend and told to get in a decidedly flimsy little boat. Now, I am as firm on staying on terra firma as the next guy but decided that Mother Nature is no match for a wrathful SO, so knuckled under and decided to go look for my sea-legs.

The Marina Club started of as a place to park those big cruisers and the club was normally deserted. Things have changed recently with the Club and the members having added a multitude of sailboats of all sizes.

So much to learn: port, starboard, keel, aft and that wooden thing that I never learned the name of. Anything loose in a boat has no business being there, I say.

Anyway, here I was, bobbing along, trying not to capsize and praying every time I could catch my breath. The last was a bit difficult as the mast kept hitting my head. There is something basically wrong with the design of all things nautical: That pesky mast. It has a mind of its own and always swings north no matter which way the wind is blowing from, except if you happen to be facing east. Then it swings east. And hits you on the head.

By and by, we cast off and raised sail to begin our junket. (Did you notice the cute way that I slipped those marine terms in?) Once away from the quay, or maybe port (the place you launch the boats from) we turned around (boom goes the mast on the head) and headed out to sea. Ok, ok, not out to sea, but up the channel at least. Once around the Golf Club is a good 10-minute run. Yeah, yeah, it actually seems much longer than it sounds. Various buildings on the way form a wind-check causing for interesting navigation opportunities; at least for a land-lubber like me. Pass the point and tack into the wind (no, I am not going to explain that. Suffice it to say that that's the point where the mast does its trick again) and race back to the parking area. That's where all the boats are parked. They have a fancy name for that as well, but never mind.

Once back at the quay or berth, I took a minute out for the shakes, lying on the ground while AO rerigged the boat for one more go.

The second time was more hectic as AO wanted to go faster and I did that neat-o thing that I had previously seen only on TV: Grab a rope, tuck your feet under the straps and lean way out in the air to balance the boat. That part is fun until the wind changes; then you have to dash back into the boat, or, in my case, slip and get a new set of bruises on my... uh, dive under the sail and do the leaning trick on the other side.

Time for a break. Back to the Marina and round off the sailor-ship experience by ordering a Coke & biscuits.

AO pulled the boat out and took it apart. He's going to add a few more ropes this week.

What? Yes, I decided that I did indeed have fun (or didn't want to face the wrath of ...) and am going again next weekend.

Now, if I can only find a way to stop that dratted mast...