Confessions of a Golf Slut: One Woman's Wanton Pursuit of the Game

Exceptionally, today we present you with an exclusive excerpt from “Confessions of a Golf Slut (A Memoir of Life, Love, and The Game),” the new book by GottaGoGolf editor Susan Fornoff.

Warning: You may end up thinking twice about the wisdom of on-line dating, but don't let this amusing excerpt keep you away from the golf course.  “Confessions of a Golf Slut” is available in print on Amazon and other online booksellers or through bookstores, as well as on ebook.

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A primer on the unplayable lie rule, as it applies on the course of love - by Susan Fornoff 

After a few pleasant Match.com dates that went nowhere, I connected with a man who claimed to love wine and golf. We talked on the phone, and I was impressed — an engineer, close to his former stepdaughters, a member of the Olympic Club in San Francisco, works out there every day. He sounded so smart, so normal, so pleasant. Two conversations later we were making a golf date.

“I made a tee-time for Saturday at nine,” I told OlympicMan. “I’ll meet you at the course.” 

“I’d rather meet on the way to the course so we can go together,” he said. “I’ve never been there before. You can show me the way, and we can have some time to talk.”

OlympicMan did live in another city, but this struck me as odd in the age of Mapquest and GPS. Inviting him to pick me up at my home would have been an online dating etiquette violation warranting a two-stroke penalty, so I chose a neutral spot, a coffee house en route to the course. 

I was there having coffee and a muffin, waiting. Finally, in walked a very wide man, wearing glasses and a crooked toupe. He smiled at me. 

Aha. 

I almost asked, “Have you seen OlympicMan, the together-looking businessman in the photo?” But my wheels were spinning. I realized quickly why he had wanted to pick me up; he no doubt had had the experience of being spotted in a busy place by a date who had left without ever acknowledging him. 

I loaded my clubs into his SUV and we motored to the course.

“Together or separate?” asked the starter in the pro shop. 

“Separate,” said OlympicMan, handing over his credit card. 

During the round, I learned that he was a member not of the U.S Open host Olympic Club golf club but of its downtown athletic club. He had used a photo of perhaps 20 years earlier, when the hair might have been real and the body 50 pounds lighter. He was an engineer, but did not have a job. He played golf, but oh-so-badly. 

OlympicMan had created a work of fiction in order to get a real date with me. Even if he believed the things he had told me were true, or had been at one time, or would be someday, I wondered how quickly he realized the jig was up? I suspect it was at that point near the ninth green, when I looked around wondering where he had gone off to in the golf cart. Suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my right breast. I looked down, where a golf ball had struck me and fallen to the ground. I looked around, and there was OlympicMan, far away on an adjacent fairway, watching in dismay as his shot into the green found a target that he never would.

By now, his manmade hair had blown sideways under his hat, and we both took a breather at the turn to hit the restroom. As I waited in the cart for him to reassemble, I took a few deep breaths (and rubbed my boob). Then I did my part to be pleasant company and (figuratively) lie in the bed that I had made. After all, I was playing golf. 

In the end, I played his game. “Let’s do this again sometime!” I said, warmly I thought. He looked surprised. I think he even said, “Really?” and I replied, again feigning sincerity, “Oh, yes!” Once I had been returned to my car in front of the coffee shop, I gave him a big hug before jumping in and locking the door. 

I figured I was just reciprocating what he had offered me.
Of course, the more I thought about it later, the angrier I felt. What was the point of such misrepresentation? To get a date, okay, I get that. But any potential for an honest relationship already has been undermined. How does one expect to go from, “I lied about my golf game, what I look like, how old I am, what I do, and what I like to do,” to, “I, OlympicMan, promise to love you forever,” or even the possibility of an exclusive committed relationship? Or even sex?  

For a moment, I regretted that a round of golf consists of 18 holes. Nine would have been sufficient. But, of course, however long a round of golf takes or seems to take, perhaps the golf slut should be grateful for the minutes spent not working or parenting, but on a golf course. Even if she’s on a bad golf date.