I Hate Golf Courses

I hate golf courses. Not all golf courses, only one specific one and the fact that there are so many. I don't hate the game of golf, though I don’t enjoy it. Golf courses are everywhere; they are prolific, and exclusive. They exclude by membership, or fee, or by the single pursuit they allow. Golf courses are often built near water and gag access to it. they inhabit the lands at the edge of town, or near a sterile suburb gaining tax dollars for the Municipality from the more valuable homes built near them.

A kid leaves through the aluminium screen door, the yard dotted with trees barely taller than this skinny blond tramp, he leaves the perfect grass the perfectly laid out Places, Drives and cul-de-sac. He leaves the perfect planned sameness. Pocket knife in tow from that trip to Old Fort Henry in Kingston a summer or so ago. T-shirt and 619 Levis, dog at his side he rounds the corner out of the suburban monotony. He can see it, down at the end of the street, corn now turning brown in the September sun. He sees the trees, the scrub, he knows this place, it is his home, the old piece of rail bed from some long forgotten branch line, the field, the creek the paths made by Kids just like him. He talks to the dog with the same colour hair as he, it is on a lead but he reminds it to heal, the dog tries to walk close and keep his pace. He is almost there he has no plan today it is just the two of them good master, good dog. In a minute the dog will run free and so will he.

Another day it is under the bed and in the dresser drawer of his basement lair, Crossman pellet rifle and the steel can of ‘bullets’. Out the door, Dean is just rounding the corner the boy pops across the street to collect Rob, the three are not out for mayhem, no trouble in their minds, they are marksmen, tin cans, chunks of bark and that first golden leaf on the otherwise green tree are the targets. They walk through the streets with the rifle barrels ‘cracked’ to indicate to the windows and wind chimes they mean no harm. The destination is the field, the creek, the rail bed. They will not return until hunger can no longer be ignored.

It is 1975 or 76, it is freedom, it is nature and fishing and bruises, dirt and snapping turtles, it is heaven.

Rush ahead almost forty years, the suburb is different. The trees are much bigger; it is a little less sterile. Just try to carry that mostly harmless rifle through the streets. Out the door down the street and around the corner and a bit there is a fence and beyond the fence perfect grass, fake landscape features, and sand traps. The kid of 2014 is stopped blocked by the exclusive golf course, even if he hops the fence, to what end?

Yes I hate golf courses.