Thousands of years before the first round of golf was completed and someone asked for more strokes next time around, the Chinese believed in the ying and yang of life. It is said that for every happy moment there is a sad one, and for every winter there is a summer, etcetera, etcetera, so forth and so on, and whatever.
Not to get too David Carradine on you, but golf is full of ying and yang moments. While the folks living in areas like Bethpage, or Minnesota, or the North Pole are complaining about the rain chilled weather, I myself just finished a round where the temperature soared above 100 degrees all afternoon. In other words, while you were freezing your ying, I was baking my yang. See how that works?
They say that only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid-day sun, but in Texas only mental patients and morons like me play golf mid-day in the summer. Why would anyone play when the temperature gauge is higher than your I.Q.? The answer is in the question, Grasshopper. But, there are secrets to playing in the heat like always park the cart in the shade. My playing partner once accused me of standing too close to him just to benefit from the breeze created by his backswing. Pish, posh.
Driving the cart at maximum speed is also helpful, especially if you take off your hat and let the breeze turn your due into a Bozo The Clown hairstyle.
Another truism of summer golf in Texas is that the beverage cart is always somewhere else. Once again; while someone is cooling their ying, you are frying your yang.
Sweating while playing golf in Texas is a given, and as you might expect, sweating creates multiple problems. First of all you get sweat rings in the most awkward places. Everyone expects to have sweaty armpits, but when the temperature reaches 105 degrees you find yourself sweating in your back pockets and noticing a trickle of sweat running down your leg. Let’s face it; sweat will make your hair crunchy among other things.
Perhaps the most dangerous sweat is the one that collects the sun block off your forehead and rolls down into your eyes. Only those of you that wear contacts like I do know what real pain is.
There are additional perils to consider when the temperature tops out in the triple-digits. For example never flop down on the seat of your cart if it has been standing in the sun… especially when you’re wearing shorts. The medical term for this predicament is fried butt, but I won't bore you with the technical stuff. I’ve seen semi-grown men scream like little girls after sitting down on a hot cart seat. It is an experience you always remember.
It is also a bad idea to grab a club from your bag if it has been sitting in the sun. The same applies to a club that you laid on the ground while you were putting. Does the term hot horseshoe come to mind? And if that wasn’t enough, the heat and humidity will also steal yards off a perfect drive… I hear.
Perhaps the guys at Augusta National have the right idea closing the course for the summer, or perhaps the only time to play golf in the Texas summer is at 6:00 A. M., which means you're up with the chickens, or out all night with the boys, neither of which is all that appealing.
By now those of you who live closer to the North Pole than me are making your way around the course and sweltering in 85-degree weather trying to understand why someone who lives in a place where you can play golf 11 months a year is complaining. It’s that ying and yang thing once again.
For every smile there is a frown, and for every Minnesota day when only morons and Eskimos consider playing golf there’s a day in Texas when I’m glad that I don’t live in Minnesota.
