"WE'RE SPENDING A LOT OF MONEY TODAY FOR THIS ROUND; NOW, HAVE A GOOD TIME"

I like this silhouette of the dad and son or daughter heading out to play golf. Or at least heading to the driving range. How do I know they're just going out? Because they're still holding hands. There will be separation when they're done. At least if they're anything like our kids. (By the way, the quote in the title was said by me in Hawaii, the last time my wife and I , and son and daughter played golf together.)

Our kids, well they're still kids even if in their 20's and 30's, inherited a strong sense of independence from their mom. It's a great quality. Most of the time. But when it comes to playing golf, I wish they had/would listen to me more. Hey, I listen to everybody. I've tried just about everything anyone has ever told me to try to improve my game.

Except for this one guy that buddy Jeff and I still talk about. We were playing with another friend and this guy got put into our group. For some reason he didn't care much for my game. He must have been related to a salesman that didn't want to sell me a set of irons adding, "you can't buy a good golf game". I showed him: I bought the clubs later in the day. I hope he didn't get the commission.

But after three holes I'm one under par. And this guy is criticising my golf swing. He's not one under, he doesn't know me, yet he doesn't like my slice on my drives. Me neither. And I never know when it's going to show up. Sometimes it's a hook. Sometimes a very big hook. Or a dead pull. Or a dead push.

When I make suggestions to our kids, I'm totally rejected. Even to this day, I'll continue to offer suggestions that fall on deaf ears. "Don't you want to hit some range balls"? I offer our son before we played in a political golf scramble last Summer. "Naugh," is all I got. And on hole number one, he dubs a drive. Silently, I'm thinking, "Naugh."

Our daughter, like our son a four-year letter(wo)man in high school golf--compared to zero for Dad, similarly takes no guidance. "You're swinging too hard, just slow it down," I opine. "I know what I did, and it wasn't that," she snaps. Snapping she also gets from her mother. "Then what was it?" I continue, unfazed. "Just leave me alone." You never want to try a follow up when you've been snapped.

So I faded that day at Coyote Lakes with Jeff and the expert whom I was beating. I think I still beat him, but on the last hole after another sliced drive, he stopped me and gave me a lesson. He wanted me to hit a second drive after he showed me how not to slice. And he never did. He hooked with nice top spin. So it irritated him to see me hit the dreaded shot squirreling-banana like to the right.

I hit a second drive, because as I said I'll listen to anyone. Well, I say that, but I've never had a formal lesson--maybe that's why I still slice. This time it was straighter, but it still had no draw, not even a fade. But he told me to work on it, and I vowed to. Now if I could get the same kind of cooperation from my children; then again, maybe our son had the right answer, "Naugh."