My level of understanding when it comes to golf is on par with very few things ““ esotericism in the Middle Ages, thermonuclear physics and, possibly, baking.
Needless to say, I don’t know much about the sport. I can’t tell you the difference between a 7-iron and a three, don’t know what makes Tiger so good and think it’s funny that caddies wear jumpsuits.
Me watching pieces of the Masters over the past few days has been like a toddler trying to analyze a Picasso. Unless you know what to look for, it just looks like one big mess.
Maybe it’s because golf and I got off to a rough start my first time at a driving range. And by rough start I mean I accidentally chucked a rental driver onto the roof of a Safeway.
Golf and I were history.
That is, until I met Holmby.
It’s a simple name for a simple place. Technically, it’s called the Arm and Hammer/Holmby Park Pitch and Putt Pony Course, but that name just doesn’t do it justice.
It’s “golf” for people like me.
People who take a moral victory out of finishing nine holes with the same ball. People whose lifetime golf highlight is shooting par on one hole. People who can’t distinguish between a deuce and a divot or a mallet and a mashie.
See, Holmby, which is five minutes from campus, isn’t so much a golf course as it is a park that happens to have 18 golf ball-sized holes in it. It’s about as close to mini-golf as you can get with a wedge.
Unlike every other course, you don’t need anything to play at Holmby.
No shoes? Sweet.
No shirt? Whatever.
No clubs? No problem. Rent the only two you’ll need for a quarter each.
See, Holmby’s longest hole is about 70 yards and using more than two clubs would just be overkill.
Technically, it costs $3 to play but that’s only if Abraham and his golf cart catch you sneaking onto the links.
Even though Holmby only qualifies as a golf course in the loosest sense of the term, sometimes it’ll make you feel like you’re at Augusta. The course crisscrosses itself like a rhubarb pie which creates potential pitfalls that leave even Angel Cabrera dropping Spanish cuss bombs.
Put too much swing on a ball and you’ve got some issues. I’m talking about accidentally hitting triplets on a stroller ride, Aaron Spelling’s $150 million mansion across the street or the open-roof buses filled with tourists that inexplicably circle the park.
Even though taking out a tourist with an 80-yard tee shot might not earn you a green jacket, it won’t get you run off the links either. As a City of Los Angeles public course, there’s no liability. Horrible golf skills, a small pitch-and-putt surrounded by expensive things and no liability? Now we’re talking.
That means all of us amateurs that might worry about knocking the teeth out of a Benz at a normal 18, you can tee it high and let it fly at Holmby.
Just don’t embarrass yourselves because you never know who’ll be watching. Both Adam Sandler and Russell Crowe have been known to frequent the links on occasion.
I might not know much about golf but I’d take beating Maximus Decimus Meridius in a game of skins over a green jacket any day.
Email Feder at jfeder@media.ucla.edu if you could put a tee shot into a stroller from 50 yards.