Little White Balls

Little White Balls

Did it start in utero?  Is there some kind of gene that controls this?  Does it affect all men, or just a select few?  My husband is one who suffers from it.  My father was one and so is my brother.  I am afraid my sons are also afflicted.  For me, it has become a search for answers to a puzzling mystery: What is the deal with men and their obsession with little white balls?  Golf balls, to be specific. 

My husband could add hours to our golf outings if he had unlimited time to search for a lost golf ball resulting from a bad drive.  It’s as if his manhood is at stake if he can’t find that thing.  I almost feel sad for him when, with head hung low, he has to leave the ball behind and take another one out of his bag, drop it, and continue play.  (I think he secretly names them all.)

But, it’s not only his neatly marked golf balls that preoccupy his thoughts when playing.  While some people get a little irritated by slow play, my husband views it as another opportunity for The Hunt.  Waiting for a foursome in front of us, I’ll sit in the cart, make a few calls, put on my lipstick.  He, on the other hand, is on the lookout, eyes to the ground, searching.  It’s a major victory if he finds a ball that someone else lost, especially, if it’s a Nike or a Calloway.  As he proudly shows me his trophy, I am reminded of how my Golden Retriever, Murphy, would look up at me as she dropped a dead bird or snake at my feet. 

“See what I did?”

“Good Dog!”

Any golfer would agree that you must have the right equipment when hitting the links.  And, no man’s golf bag is complete unless he has a ball retriever.  There are hundreds of models on the market. Some can fit in your pocket and some can telescope out as far as 24 feet!  They have names like “The Trapper,” “Joe, the Golf Ball Retriever, and “I Gotcha.”  Some are hinged, some are florescent, and some have rakes attached.  Imagine.  An entire industry built around this obsession with recovering golf balls! 

But, that retriever is not just for when we play golf.  Walks have now turned into hunting trips, with ball retriever in hand.  When the local course is closed, it is not unusual to see more than one guy out there, armed with his own ball retriever, scouring the brush and tall grasses, kneeling dangerously over the edge of the ponds and creeks, scaling the wooded gullies and hazards in search of those tiny white balls.  Men hunting.  Boys in tribal rites of passage.  Bringing home the bounty to store in buckets in the garage, or as I call it, the man cave.  We have 2 big buckets.

Is there a cure for this?  Probably not.  Male doctors are notoriously known to possess the same obsession.  One thing I do know for sure:  This is definitely a male thing.  I know of no woman who would waste time or effort searching for a lost golf ball.  There are snakes and spiders under those bushes and tall grasses!  It’s just not worth it.  I hit a lot of bad shots and have put a lot of balls in the great “out of bounds.”  I’ll give it a cursory look, just to make my husband feel like I tried.  But, I am not getting out of that golf cart and if I can’t find it on the first drive by, I’ll just drop another one near by.  Let some man have his small moment in the sun when he finds that pink crystal golf ball that I drove into the bushes.  I’ll just go to the mall and buy some more.