A Blank Scorecard

Here are today’s Wonderful Words:

I stood for a moment on the tee box, staring up the fairway, not wanting to smudge the crisp, virgin canvas of my adventure. So far, my scorecard read even par. You can’t avoid getting old, but if you play golf you know what it feels like to have life begin all over again with each new round. You have a shot at redemption, a chance to correct past mistakes, erase regrets; all is forgiven. Today will be different. There is the smell of wet grass, the crisp cardboard of an unbent scorecard, a sharp pencil, a new ball, still cool and slightly sticky to the touch. It’s the moment of infinite possibility, when all drives will land in the fairway, wedge shots will float like angels to welcoming greens, and putts will roll true. And here I was on the cusp of not just one round but an entire summer’s worth of golf, the road trip of a lifetime.

Blue Fairways, Charles Slack, page 6

Background

Blue Fairways is the classic American travelog with a golfing spin. Sometime in the mid nineties, Charlie Slack quit his job as a newspaper reporter and set out on a golfing expedition down the east coast of the United States. With his wife and young child at home, Slack—a mediocre golfer—spent several months sleeping in motels and hacking his way across the municipal courses of the Eastern US. Blue Fairways is the story of his journey.

What makes it wonderful?

Every golfer—especially the bad ones like me—know this feeling Slack is describing.

The untainted possibility that today will be different. That, despite all data suggesting otherwise, today could be the day I play like the golfer I am in my mind.

It’s kind of like the feeling you get from holding a lottery ticket, waiting with anticipation for the first number to be called. It’s never happened before, but today—right now—there’s still a chance. Today could be the day I become a rich man. No matter how small the possibility, it’s enough to let your mind run wild with hope. With fantasy. With belief, however slight.

But forget golf and lottery tickets. Forget long shots. At its core, this paragraph is a metaphor of a new beginning. A fresh start. That feeling we’ve all felt time and time again.

The first day of classes in the fall. The first meeting at the new job. The first bite of the better diet. The first rep of the fresh workout routine. The first date of the next relationship.

I’ll take better notes. I’ll show more enthusiasm. I’ll avoid the cookies. I’ll show up every day. I’ll be less selfish this time.

“I’ll do better,” we tell ourselves. I’ll be the person I know I can be. The person I know I should be.

And sometimes we are. Sometimes we learn. Sometimes we get promoted. Sometimes we lose weight, get fit, and find true love.

But we usually fall a little bit short. Our expectations exceed our reality.

And at some point we realize, the person we are and the person we’d like to be are looking at each other from opposite sides of a raging river. And there’s no bridge.

There’s a log. And a rope. A life jacket and a walking stick.

We can find a way to meet, but it won’t be easy. It takes work, and time, and risk, and luck.

Or we could just start something new and feel that fleeting hit of dopamine. I guess that's what golf is for.

Let's get technical

As I mentioned earlier, Slack uses a fresh round of golf as a metaphor.

Standing on the first tee box with a blank scorecard is literally a fresh start. But everything it represents—and all the emotions it evokes—is the same as starting anything new.

It’s an intoxicatingly relatable feeling, and a damn good piece of writing.

If you have the opportunity to relate your writing to a universal feeling, it will ring true with readers. Most people don’t play golf, but everyone starts something new. Where can you find this overlap in the topics you write about? Answer that question, and you’ll unlock a world of possibilities.

Happy writing,

Joe