Walking the Course!

[Peter Galea]

I played five holes today, walking. For the first time since April 1985 I walked and played golf. (after a successful hip replacement in Feb.) This post is not about me. It’s about the game. It’s about everything I’ve missed and forgotten about for the past seventeen years.
I walked and played my course Pajaro Valley, where I’ve been superintendent for two and a half years. It’s no architectural gem, but a course with some good holes, some blindness and some quirk.
I walked and saw things I’d never seen, even though I’d been there nearly every day for those two plus years. Most times I’d driven right by the best parts of the golf course on my way to the next shot. The shot was the most important thing there was while riding in a cart. That was the game I was relegated to for so many years. Yes, I think architecturally and see photographically,  but today I “saw” the golf course and remembered the game.
I carried a Sunday bag with seven clubs and a balatta ball. I felt the turf beneath my feet, felt the wind change direction several times on one hole, and really felt I was playing golf. I got slightly winded walking up one hole, and wasn’t even upset when I had to go back fifty yards and pick up a head cover I had dropped. On a par five I got warm and took off my jacket. I smelled different fragrances, cut turf, pine, flowers and adjacent berry fields.
Placing foot in front of foot, I gained a different perspective of the hole every step of the way. I discovered new vistas and found little bumps and rolls I never knew existed. . I saw the character of the land. All this I sped by on four wheels in the past.
I guess this post “is” about me. But it’s also about enlightenment, awareness, discovery and the love of a game I’d long forgotten. Golf is a game to be played, and played walking. I will be walking 18 soon, and loving every minute of it! I’m a kid in a candy store, a new man, with a new passion. Golf, the way it was meant to be...walking.

[Chris Kane]

I've never understood the attraction that cart golf has for people.  Sure, on an extreme site it might be beneficial, but otherwise, I'd walk.

Here in Australia, at member clubs, carts are rare.  For example, at my club, a medical certificate is required before a member may use one.  The best system in my opinion!

[redanman]

YAHOOOOOOO Petey!!!!

I am truly happy for you.  Welcome back to the world afoot.  I know how much this means to you.  Looking forward to seeing you back East on feet afleet.

Did my e-mail get back to you?  Do you have that zipcode for me?

BV

[TEPaul]

Pete, that's amazing you haven't walked your course in all those years!

It's interesting to me too how many different "takes" you can get on a golf course, even one you know extremely well if you look at it in other ways, then riding or even playing golf on it.

Just walking around on it can give you a vastly different "take" on the course and if you're fascinated by architecture you start to look at the place as the architect might have looked at it before he built the course--maybe in the routing process and then why he added certain things (the architecture) and even more fascinating to me--exactly how he did it!

I guess I must have tunnel vision when I play golf on a course, even my own, but just walking and looking is a vastly different "take". Just doing something extremely simple like walking around behind any or every green when you're not playing golf and concentrating on the next shot is a very different "take"!

On some of these older golf courses around here walking behind greens and looking at how they were made and looking backwards is a bit like "going behind the curtain" to me!

And the most interesting "take" that let's you play golf and also see things you may have never noticed before is to do what Pete did by walking it and playing it with a very limited number of clubs!

Basically that removes some of the incredibly ingrained expectations and perceptions that most of us have and probably aren't much aware of anymore like the proper LZ, the exact distances that the clubs go, GIR, par, birdie and bogie and the ingrained "score" that never really seems to leave our minds when we play the game.

One time I walked around a great old course with this girlfriend of mine (who really wasn't a golfer) with each of us carrying one iron and a putter and it was a take on the game and that course I'll never forget. I definitely did see things about that course I'd never noticed or thought about before.

Scoring in golf is hugely fundamental but walking around without the normal "golf expectations" sort of makes it easier to see the essence of it all!

[David Wigler]

Pete,

Thank you for so eloquently stating why I love to walk.  If you do not mind, I will plagiarize large parts of this for my next discussion with people on why the "Carts Only" on Saturday and Sunday morning policy is so bad.

[THuckaby2]

Best news I've heard in a long, long time - good for you, Pete.

And thanks for the reminder, and lesson.  I tend to just willingly hop in a cart far too often.  I hope Dan King reads this... but damn, I'm reading this I'm not gonna do so much any more.  Guess I have been missing too much.

And I too fully intend to plagiarize this and distribute to my cart-only friends.  Thanks!

TH

[Lou Duran]

Pete,

Great post.  I am so glad that you are making steady progress.  It is obvious that you are gaining a greater appreciation for the game, perhaps falling in love with golf all over again.

As we discussed, I am a member of a private club operated by AGC which imposes mandatory riding during weekend and holiday mornings.  Our director of golf, a nice fellow and good golfer who plays at least a couple of times a week, is usually oblivious of various problems such as sprinkler leaks, stopped drains, fuel or fluid spills, unraked traps, etc.  I walk and see these things routinely.  He rides and not only misses the detail, I am not sure that he even sees the big picture.  I have to believe that as a result of you walking the course regularly you will become an even better superintendent.  Please keep us informed of your progress and new discoveries.

[Steve Okula]

Pete,

I'm happy for you and you're recovery. I should have your perspective, but the last time I played and walked my course it was like this.

"That back tee on number one is looking dry, I'll need to check the sprinkler tomorrow, it probably isn't working right. God, there are a lot of divots on the tee, I'll need to send someone out tomorrow to fill them, and that reminds me, I need to order more bentgrass seed. I wish the green chairman would forget about the idea of dying the sand green.

"These fairways need aerating and verticutting. When will it ever rain and get that last fertilizer application going? Oh, great, here's another weeping sprinkler. I thougth I sprayed these broadleafed weeds. I really need to re-do the drainage in that bunker.

"I told they guy on roughs to make sure he cut the right side today, it still isn't done. Those reels aren't cutting right either, I'll have to talk to the mechanic about that. We still have a lot of work to clear away that ancient oak tree that blew over. Man, that pond grows algae like nobody's business. Why is it people keep pulling out the hazard stakes?

"Gosh, the aerator holes are slow to cover on the greens. And what's this, Fusarium again already? I just sprayed last week! Taking the height down to satisfy the low handicappers' lust for speed is peeling the turf right off the high spots and just look at the moss loving it."

And that's just one hole.

I don't much enjoy playing my own course.  

[Evan Fleisher]

Pete,

Absolutely brilliantly stated...and I concur 100%.

Walking is the essence of the game, and why I am so passionate about it.  There is too much out there on our fields of play to whisk by them in a four-wheeled vehicle.  All of those small nuances are exactly why I hoof it at every chance, and I hope that never ends.

I'm so glad to hear the surgery appears to have been successful, and you are returning to a form of the game you love.  Hopefully, we can share a walk one of these days.

[John_D._Bernhardt]

I could not be happier for you Pete. You are right, it is the way the game is meant to be played.

[GeoffreyC]

Pete

Like the others have already stated, I'm really happy for you especially since you are now healthy and pain free and your whole quality of life is improved.

I look forward to walking down the fairways with you some time shortly.

Geoffrey

[Bob_Huntley]

Pete:

Congratulations on your walk. Like Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin I shall plagiarize this for all its worth.

[Bob_Huntley]

Pete:

Congratulations on your walk. Like Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin I shall plagiarize this for all its worth.

[Dan Kelly]

Pete --

We have never met. May never meet.

But I will think of you, and your new hip, and your wise words, the next time the bursitis in my hips is screaming bloody murder as I walk up a good steep hill to a tee or to a green.

Thanks.

[JohnV]

Pete,

Great to hear about your continuing progress.  I can't wait until we can get out there and walk the course together.

Your post should be required reading for every person who wants to use a cart, including those who had large hangovers the Sunday before last in San Diego.

[Mike_Cirba]

Pete,

What a fabulous post!  I am thrilled to hear your recovery is progressing so well.  

Godspeed, my friend.

Mike

[THuckaby2]

Pete,

Your post should be required reading for every person who wants to use a cart, including those who had large hangovers the Sunday before last in San Diego.

OUCH!  That's right, you walked Sunday, didn't ya JV?  Very impressive.

In my own defense, the architect and his young partner Josh were in a cart in my group.  It would have been anti-social to walk alone.  I must say I wasn't exactly complaining given it was about 5 hours from my last drink at PeteL's till the time I teed off at Barona, but still, if they weren't in a cart I would have walked.

TH

[JohnV]

Tom, all three of my fellow competitors were riding and at one point in the round I was very glad there was a cart I could borrow for a quick run from the 16th tee to the little building on the 12th hole.

[THuckaby2]

JV: at the risk of offending "guest" who chided me for back and forth banter yesterday...

I just can't do that.  I nearly always go with the group.  I find if I'm the only one walking, I might as well be playing alone - I just don't get any comradery or banter.  Especially in this case, this round, said banter with Todd and Josh was way more important to me than playing the game or "seeing" the course - and it's funny, that's nearly always the case for me.  Of course being in carts PERIOD takes away from this... walking is way better for that also... but if others are in carts and aren't gonna walk, I just can't force myself to be the odd man out.

TH

[W.H. Cosgrove]

A few comments, Firstly congrats on getting back on your feet.  Golf is a better game from ground level!

My father was an insatiable golfer.  He broke his leg in a skiing accident and was never able to walk a golf course again.  The power cart was a great blessing for him.  But I don't think he ever enjoyed the game in the same way again.  

Also, a recent article in GOLFWEEK discussed pull carts and the stigma they bring in this country.  Fortunately, I belong to a club that not only allows them but promotes their use.  'Just don't pull them between green and bunker!!'  The new three wheel carts that have been developed are great.  I was finally convinced to get my bag off of my aching shoulders and have found that I am finishing stronger on difficult seventeent and eighteeth holes.  

We now have over thirty of these three wheel carts in use.  Players who had been riding for years have made a decision to get out and walk.  All of this has made the game more enjoyable.  

If you belong to a course that still either discourages or prohibits the use of these carts, you may be able to make a case for their use.  
#1 our pro has sold nearly $6000 of these carts!  Good for him.
#2 We charge an increased storage fee fro them.  Good for the club!!

Golf is a walking game afterall!!

[ed_getka]

Pete,
 I'm glad to hear you have played some holes and are able to walk comfortably. When you are ready for nine holes lets go do the back nine at Pacific Grove to celebrate!  

[Bill_McBride]

Cos, we have had exactly the same experience with the three-wheeled Sun Mountain carts here at Pensacola CC. There are a lot more people wallking with that easy rolling cart.  

[W.H. Cosgrove]

Bill, I wasn't trying to give Sun Mountain an advertisement but that is the one.  

We are now trying to create a good way to carry sand/seed on the cart to fill divots!

Thanks for the verification of our experience

[THuckaby2]

They have wonderful LARGE two-wheeled versions at Bandon Dunes.  Once I figured out where they were and what I needed to do to get one, they definitely made things easier.  No stigma at all there either.

TH

[Rick Shefchik]

Pete:

I'll draw much inspiration from you as I continue to recover from knee surgery complications that basically knocked me off the course last August. I could feel your emotions as I read your description of the joy walking a golf course again brings you.

I've managed to walk two 18-hole rounds myself so far this season -- the first time with my 13-year-old son caddying for me, the second time with a rented pull-cart (or trolley, as I believe they call them in the U.K. -- a term I like better.) Having wondered all winter whether I'd be able to do it (and having cancelled a long-planned-for first visit to Pebble Beach this spring on the suspicion that I couldn't do it), the relief and the pleasure I received from those two otherwise uneventful trips around my home course were immense. The prospect of playing golf out of a cart this summer depressed me almost as much as the persistent knee pain did. Now it looks as though I won't have to take that drastic step.

(A side note: I, too, was a little concerned about the stigma of the trolley. The good competitive players -- the guys who really look like golfers -- carry their bags with double straps, as I always had before. But compared to the possibility that the weight of the bag might be too much for my knee, the trolley was a welcome discovery. It's not as good as a caddy, but it's the next best thing. I'm converted.)

I just wanted to let you know, Pete, that reading your post makes me appreciate my own rehab progress that much more. Let's both leave a lot of footprints out there this summer.

Rick