October 14, 2024
The One Handed Chip
One of the things which happens when you turn 65 is the realization that you are never going to be famous. It works out well because, at 65, you really don't care that much anymore. Part about getting old is accepting and even embracing who you turned out to be.
In my case, it meant that what I, for years, thought was charming and funny was, in actuality, just obnoxious and weird.
I was ok with that.
For a few years, I toyed with the notion I just might be eccentric.
But it didn't take.
I also stopped reading fiction. Like my father before me, I have been reading a lot of history and trying, most often failing, to attain and absorb more knowledge.
The irony is this story is about one of the odder things which I do but only the people who have ever golfed with me know about. That is to say, I chip with one hand.
I promise you don't really have to know anything about golf in order to follow this story. For now, you don't even have to know what a chip is. Only, that virtually every golfer in the world, young or old, good or bad, tall or short, man or woman or none of the above, chips with two hands.
But not me.
I chip with one hand.
Even though I have two.
Spend a second trying to imagine Lewberg walking up to my golf cart, with a Ketel and cran in each hand.
Because that is how the story starts.
"They put us in with a fucking single,” he said as he moved my phone and bottle of Coke so he could monopolize the cup holders.
"Nah," I replied, jamming the Coke bottle into a cubby hole which was too small for it to fit in "I booked a threesome. They would never put in a fourth.”
"Look at the tee sheet. Fucking Bernie put in a single.”
Bernie was one of the starters. Like the other starters, we had an arrangement, financial and otherwise, which ensured we never had to play with a stranger.
Goldfarb, Lewberg and I did not like playing with strangers.
I opened up the club tee time app and immediately discovered that Lewberg was correct. Right below our three names was a fourth… Guest.
Then Goldfarb came puffing along with his newfangled electric golf cart he had, remote control and all, in order so he could get a little more exercise.
Scratch that.
In order so he could get some exercise.
"Fucking Bernie put us in with a fucking single," he exclaimed as the three of us watched his golf bag, whose steering mechanism he had clearly not mastered, seemingly run amock on the pristine practice putting green. Goldfarb liked playing with strangers even less than Lewberg and I and his overwrought concern took a little sting out of the ordeal.
"I’ll take care of this," I said and I walked across to the starters' hut which was situated right next to the first tee. Bernie was in there munching on the tuna sandwich I had just brought him.
"What the fuck Bernie? Since when do we play with strangers.”
Bernie shrugged his shoulders and sheepishly said "I couldn't say no.”
"You couldn’t say no?”
"Why?”
Bernie nodded in the direction of the driving range and I turned my head to have a look. I wasn't sure what I was looking for but it only took me a few seconds to figure out: of the 5 people practicing on the driving range, only one of them was missing an arm.
Also, no word of a lie, he was by far the best of the five.
On the first tee, he introduced himself, in a very thick Russian accent, as Joe.
Lewberg, doing his best not to look where he was dying to look, asked if he was ok playing from the whites.
"Whites are good," he grunted and then offered to lead the way, took a mighty one-handed swing with his driver and crushed it 200 yards right down the center.
And then we played golf.
The thing about golf is that it is a lot like Judaism. There are traditions, rituals and rules, some dogmatic, some less so, customs and sayings, some said emphatically and emotionally and others said by rote, which allow two Jewish strangers or two golf strangers (in this case 4) to interact in the most natural and comfortable way.
On Yom Kippur, when I greet a fellow Jew with the ancient benediction of Gmar Hatimah Tova- ‘you should have a good final sealing’, which is just another way of saying ‘I hope you don't die next year’, it isn't all that different than when I tell Goldfarb that I don't think his ball ended up in the trees. ‘I think it opens up over there’ I will say. I think he is still alive.
You drop a Jew in a synagogue anywhere in the world and he or she will quickly be able to figure it out. And, like golf, by the end, may have acquired a lifelong friend.
And so the four of us played golf.
Three old fat Jews and a one-armed Russian.
On number 5 Lewberg hit a shot which missed right. It was well-struck so I encouragingly said "If it had been a little more left, it would have been on the green.”
Which promoted Joe to laugh and utter a Yiddish proverb I had not heard in over 50 years but which had been a stable of my Ashkenazi Bubby’s vocabulary.
"If I had wheels I would have been a wagon.”
And so we were 4 Jews, fat and thin, playing golf. We talked a little about Israel. I told him I was born in Haifa. He said he knew it well although he had spent most of his time in Tel Hai, in the Galilee. I hadn't heard of it but made a mental note to look it up.
On number 7, Goldfarb worked up the nerve to ask.
"How did you lose your arm?”
"In the war," replied Joe.
None of us had the courage to ask which war.
On number 8, I shanked yet another chip into someone’s house. Which prompted me to throw my club into the lake. Then we watched Joe loft another one-handed chip and have it land gently a few feet from the hole. His swing was like throwing a softball underhanded. He faced the hole instead of standing sideways.
“I’ve got the yips," I said out loud to Joe, waving my hands in an exaggerated spasm to illustrate, "It is in my head.”
Joe nodded sympathetically. "We had a guy in the Mules who was like that with a rifle. Tragic story. Here," he handed me his club. “Try it with one hand.”
I shook my head no.
I wanted to try it but wasn't about to in front of a man who was forced to play that way. But I tried it the next day. That was over ten years ago. I've chipped with one hand since. I never got as good as Joe but I was less shit than with two hands and that was a huge improvement.
Joe only played 9 holes so we shook hands and took a picture on the 9th green to commemorate the event. Not sure if it was the sun or if Lewberg’s phone timer screwed up, but the picture ended up very blurry and none of us are recognizable. Still, when I looked up Tel Hai that evening, there was no doubt that the picture of the man staring me in the face was of the man we had played 9 holes with that afternoon.
Joe.
Joseph Trumpeldor.
Thing is, he had been killed at Tel Hai in 1920.
Fought in the Russo-Japanese War and lost his arm at the siege of Port Arthur in 1905.
He helped form the Zion Mule Corp and had fought in Gallipoli.
He was a famous Jewish war hero.
I never told Goldfarb or Lewberg.
I never told anyone.
It was odd enough already without having to explain that I learned the one-handed chip from a legend of Zionism who had died 100 years earlier.
Besides, I kinda liked keeping it to myself.
Two days ago, just before I started writing this story, I told Allie.
Her response reminded me why we were friends.
"You know you didn’t really meet Joseph Trumpeldor?”
"I do.”
"Probably just your meds.”
"Yeah, I figured.”
"Good thing you didn't play with Moshe Dayan.”
The End