Protocol Abandonment

Martin Keane, Dublin

 

A round of golf does not begin on the first tee.

It begins earlier, with the belief that the day ahead will resemble the one imagined the night before.

This belief is sincere.
It is also unprotected.

The first tee is where it meets the game.

The opening shot is struck with intent.

A better player hopes for position.
A worse player hopes only for dignity.  

Both are asking the same thing: an outcome that allows the round to proceed as planned.

The game declines.

A ball in trouble is treated as incidental. An exception. A momentary lapse.

The plan remains intact—briefly.

The next hole is assigned corrective power.

An adjustment is identified and applied with confidence: grip, tempo, alignment. Something measurable. Something controllable.

A good shot may follow.

This is not evidence of recovery.
It is evidence of memory.

Hope, at this stage, is easily repaired.

By the third or fourth hole, hope changes form.

The player is no longer trying to play well.

He is trying to avoid irreversible damage.

Golf balls are counted, not casually, but with the sort of attention given to supplies. Water is regarded as a creditor. Trees as a filing system.

New equipment is handled differently now.

A brand-new driver, purchased in a moment of faith, is carried past hazards as though it can be spared by caution.

It cannot.

With progress stalled, hope seeks assistance elsewhere.

The beverage cart becomes relevant.

Its absence is noticed. Its schedule is debated. Its arrival is anticipated with a level of interest once reserved for performance.

The cart is not expected to improve the golf.
Only the experience of it.

This is regarded as a reasonable compromise.

By the latter part of the front nine, the day’s objectives have been revised again.

Improvement is no longer assumed.

Completion is still mentioned, but less often, and not with conviction.

Attention moves upward. Cloud cover is evaluated. Wind is reclassified as a factor. The possibility of rain is introduced carefully, like a suggestion that should not sound like a request.

It is a request.

At this point, protocol has been abandoned.

Not dramatically. Not in protest.

Simply through repeated failure of the original premise.

The round continues under a reduced set of aims: keep it moving, keep it in play, keep it from becoming a story.

This is the best available outcome.

None of this is unusual.

It occurs daily, across handicaps, time zones, and price points.

The remarkable part is not that players reach protocol abandonment.

It is that tomorrow they return to the first tee as if it has never happened