Arnold Palmer is a Buddhist
Dream.
Arnold Palmer lines up for a two-foot putt. It's for all the marbles. The tourney is riding on this shot. It's only two feet, and he is the golf legend Arnold Palmer, but the grass is thick in this section of the hotel lobby, so it's a tough shot.
Somehow I am the only spectator standing so close. He hits the ball, kind of pushes it out of the thick grass, which I didn't know was legal. The ball goes in and out of the cup, the crowd goes up then down, the inverse of the ball. The ball then rolls backward, almost reversing into the cup. I think about nudging it in with my foot or blowing or stamping on the ground, but I'm not sure if I can get away with it or how the crime would be prosecuted. Just to be sure I'm getting my story right, I measure the distance of the missed putt with my feet. Yup, less than two. It was still a great shot from that thick grass, though.
"Well," he told me, "usually it comes back. This time it didn't." Then he made a distorted face and stuck out his tongue and made a noise impossible to transliterate, something like this: "Wenhh!" This was to show he didn't care. I found this incredible. He wasn't OCD. How could you be so accomplished and not obsess about your failures? But he was: Take it as it comes. A Buddhist. The moment had passed.
"But Arnie," I said, trying to bond with him. "It did come back, a couple inches, almost went in." But he was putting his putter away. It was clear he had already moved on. I, and the crowd, and any link to what had just happened, were all invisible to him.
Arnold Palmer lines up for a two-foot putt. It's for all the marbles. The tourney is riding on this shot. It's only two feet, and he is the golf legend Arnold Palmer, but the grass is thick in this section of the hotel lobby, so it's a tough shot.
Somehow I am the only spectator standing so close. He hits the ball, kind of pushes it out of the thick grass, which I didn't know was legal. The ball goes in and out of the cup, the crowd goes up then down, the inverse of the ball. The ball then rolls backward, almost reversing into the cup. I think about nudging it in with my foot or blowing or stamping on the ground, but I'm not sure if I can get away with it or how the crime would be prosecuted. Just to be sure I'm getting my story right, I measure the distance of the missed putt with my feet. Yup, less than two. It was still a great shot from that thick grass, though.
"Well," he told me, "usually it comes back. This time it didn't." Then he made a distorted face and stuck out his tongue and made a noise impossible to transliterate, something like this: "Wenhh!" This was to show he didn't care. I found this incredible. He wasn't OCD. How could you be so accomplished and not obsess about your failures? But he was: Take it as it comes. A Buddhist. The moment had passed.
"But Arnie," I said, trying to bond with him. "It did come back, a couple inches, almost went in." But he was putting his putter away. It was clear he had already moved on. I, and the crowd, and any link to what had just happened, were all invisible to him.
posted by Thon at 12:15 PM
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