Golf.

I wasn’t blessed with athletic genes. You can probably tell by looking at me in the picture. I’m the one with sexy legs on the right.

I played Little League when I was a kid and I was pretty average. I mostly played second base but one day they ran out of pitchers so the coach put me on the mound. I promptly hit a kid in the head. He cried, his mom came out onto the field, and they stopped the game. Frankly, I think he overreacted because how much can it hurt to get hit in the helmet by a 13 mph pitch? The only thing damaged was my confidence because after that I was afraid to throw anything inside for fear of killing somebody.

I also played slow pitch softball for a few years. I played on our church softball team, and I played a couple of years for the WBOC All Stars. That was a team made up of WBOC TV staff that went around and played games with real teams for publicity and fundraising. One day I was playing left field and the centerfielder and I tried to catch the same fly ball and we collided. We were in the communication business but we forgot to communicate to each other. I blacked out briefly and ended up with about 15 stitches in my lip and I couldn’t go on TV for a couple weeks. My news director wasn’t impressed.

The WBOC All Stars also had a basketball team. One time we played the Baltimore Orioles at the Civic Center in Salisbury. We were horrible but we practiced for a couple of weeks ahead of time. Just before the game, somebody from the Orioles organization came over to our locker room and reminded us this was an exhibition game just for fun, and told us we couldn’t touch the O’s players. “These guys have million dollar contracts and if you hurt them on the basketball court they can’t play baseball, and that’s going to be a problem!”

We figured that meant they’d just take it easy and we’d just have some fun. Wrong. These guys came out guns blazing. Cal Ripken, Eddie Murray, all the big names…and they were in our faces and dunking the ball and we weren’t allowed to defend them. I mean, I probably could have shut down Ripken but I was forced to stand down.

That’s pretty much the highlights of my sports career.

Until one day when I began producing a weekly golf show on Comcast SportsNet called GolfShots with my friend Ed Abrams. Ed did mornings at KYW NewsRadio in Philadelphia and he was a serious golfer. I shot and edited the show. Ed did everything else including writing and hosting.

TaylorMade was our title sponsor the first year and they needed a TV commercial produced so they sent me a script and a set of brand new TaylorMade clubs including a driver and a 3 wood. I produced the ad, they approved it, and I said, “Where do you want me to send the clubs?”

They said I could keep them. So one day I threw them in the car with my video gear and after we were done shooting I tried playing. I mean, I had spent months with PGA professionals and touring pros who were teaching Ed and our viewers all the tips and techniques. How hard could it be?

I learned that day, and every day since, that golf is basically a four hour argument between your brain and your body, and the ball listens to neither. Mark Twain said golf is a good walk spoiled.

I say it’s an expensive and time consuming way to ruin your self esteem.

But I love it. I don’t think I have ever been so bad at something that I enjoy doing.

I mean there are days when I hate it. Usually it’s around the 14 tee and I’m humiliated and tired and I am questioning my existence. Then I hit a shot that goes exactly where I wanted it to go and I lie to myself once again, thinking I may be able to figure this out one day. It’s like a toxic relationship but with ugly shoes.

Hand-eye coordination is important in golf, and that is unfortunate because my hands and my eyes haven’t gotten along since I hit that kid in the head. I’ve yet to hit anybody with my golf ball, but honestly that’s because everybody runs for cover when they see me on the tee. It’s more of a miracle than skill.

I love golf because it’s four hours of sunshine, beautifully landscaped courses, lots of laughs with friends, and snacks at the turn. I love it because no matter how bad I play, there’s always hope that I can do better next time. I love it because most of the guys I play with feel the same way, and they also keep coming back for more.

Older golfers strive to shoot their age. That means scoring a round where your total strokes are equal to, or less than, your age.

I’m on track to do that by August of 2077 when I turn 120.