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OK, it’s now May 21st and yesterday was the first day I was able to get out and play golf with the guys this season. Seems like it’s getting later and later every year. It used to be that as soon as the weather got nice, we were out on the course. But now, family, our jobs, work around the house and various other commitments tend to keep us from the game we all love.
So what are we to do? Do we just sit back and accept this? Do we just let life get in the way of the time we are longing to spend chasing the little white ball around the big green course? Well, to put it simply…yes. That’s exactly what we do.
When things like this first began happening to me, I had a tough time accepting it. After all, it had been years since I had a job requiring me to work on weekends. So work never got in the way. I was a single guy back when I took up golf, so family matters never got in the way. But now, that seems like another lifetime.
Luckily, work doesn’t get in the way for me. But it does get in the way of our regular golfing group as one of us works on Saturdays. So to make sure we can still play together we’re trying to move golf to Sundays.
Family, on the other hand, is something that only seems to become more and more time-consuming as well. Now I know I just made that seem like family time is a negative, but trust me, I only mean it to be negative in a golf sense. I wouldn’t change family time for anything.
What I mean is, as we get older, we become committed to our kids commitments. Additionally, there are nieces and nephews, brothers and sisters, cousins and friends, aunts and uncles…someone always has something going on. Birthdays, graduations, school events, field trips, sports…there’s always something keeping you from being on the course.
So what to do other than wait? That’s about all we can do…wait. But, as Tom Petty said…”The waiting is the hardest part.” We wait until the kids are older. We wait until they’re out of school. We wait until sporting events are over. We wait until they’re too old to have birthday parties. Then, we can take our weekends back. Then, we can go back to playing as often as we used to. Then, we won’t be limited to fitting in golf when we have some free time. Hopefully by then, all our time will be free!
But as much as I long for these days, I don’t want to make it seem like I’m in that much of a hurry. Because these are the times that I’ll look back on when I am older. And something tells me when I’m older, there’s a chance I may think just the opposite.
Swing ’til you’re happy!
In 2006, I spent a couple weeks in Japan and purchased a Yomiuri Giants hat for my father while attending a baseball game at the Tokyo Dome.My dad loved that hat. None of his buddies knew what the logo was and he enjoyed explaining it to them. Anyway, a few months after I gave it to him, he was wearing the hat while we were out hacking up this local 9-holer.
When I was dropping him off home after the round, I noticed he didn’t have it on and asked him about it. “Ah sh*t! I think I left it in the basket on the cart!” He called the course but they didn’t have it. He called again the next day to see if someone turned it in, but still nothing. He even drove down to the course a couple days later to check the lost and found bin…nada. The hat was lost.
But that got me wondering about something I had never thought about before – the fact that golf courses have a lost and found bin to begin with.
Let me ask you something: How many head covers have you lost on the course over the years? Every damn time you get on the tee-box you have to take the head cover off your driver and put it back on after your shot – It’s so annoying. It’s far easier to just leave it in the cart basket until the round is over. Ah, but inevitably it will just be left there to end up in the infamous lost and found bin (or end up on another driver who’s owner also lost a similar head cover the week before).
A better solution would be to leave the head cover in your trunk, since that’s where you need most of the club head protection. Problem solved.
But sadly, the club head cover and the hat are not the only things left on the course. Let me ask you something else: How many times has someone driven up to you in a cart and asked you if you left your pitching wedge on the previous green? How many times have you been the one in the cart doing the asking?
It’s one thing to leave a club head cover but quite another to leave a $100 club. Yet, we golfers do it all the time. Here’s the classic scenario: You’re in a cart (another reason to always walk) and your ball is just off the green. You can’t take the cart too close to the green so you grab your wedge and putter and walk over to your ball. After you chip on, you grab your putter and leave your wedge on the fringe. And there it stays until someone from one of the groups behind you finds it.
If you’re lucky, someone honest will find it and return it. If you’re not lucky, someone dishonest who needs a shiny new pitching wedge will get one for free. The good news is, vary rarely do we leave our $400 drivers!
But how many golf gloves have you left behind? How many divot repair tools? Watches? Cameras? Cell phones? Wedding rings??? Yep, these things can all be found in abundance in your local pro shop lost and found box.
We’ve all lost things on the course one time or another. We humans are prone to be forgetful (a major airline reports 10,000 lost items a week) and the golf course is no exception.
But there’s one item we all leave on the course and never even think about it – one item specific to the golf course. We never call the pro shop asking about them; never wonder what ever happened to them; we don’t even really care that much about losing them (in the long term, anyway).
I’m talking about golf balls, of course. We all leave those behind. In fact, golfers in the U.S. alone lose an estimated 300 million golf balls annually. Three hundred million!!! I know I’ve done my fair share of contributing to that number. And perhaps of all the things we lose on the course, the number of golf balls (whether we care or not) weighs the heaviest – on our scorecards, on our wallets, and on the planet.
If you care about my last point at all, purchase recycled or refurbished golf balls. Studies have shown that recycled and refurbished balls do not lose any playability compared to their new counterparts. Not only will you be supporting efforts to limit the number of these lost balls scattered about the earth, but you’ll be saving money to boot. So, that takes care of the planet and your wallet.
Your scorecard, on the other hand, I cannot help you with…You’re on your own with that one.
Well, it’s April 16th. Hopefully, you’ve gotten all of your tax requirements taken care of. After all, the IRS is probably the last group of people, government employees or otherwise, that you want knocking on your front door. But if you’re one of those people who uses the golf course to make your business deals, then did you remember to claim everything?It’s always a question in the back of the mind of everyone who uses the golf course as a tool to “close the deal.” When the question “Can I write this off?” goes through your mind, especially if you’re not able to seal the deal with your potential client, a quick bit or research can reveal that yes, you can in fact write off that round and meal. Well, a portion of it anyway.
As with anything involving the government, things are never cut-and-dry. Everything is always complicated. After all, they’re certainly not going to let you just get money without making you work for it. But, do a little bit of that work, and it can do nothing but benefit you.
So, the write-off – as mentioned earlier, yes you can write off your golf as well as your meal and drinks in the 19th hole. But (there’s always a but), you can’t have it all. You can write off up to 50% of what you spend. But hey, half is better than none, right? Of course, the details go a bit further. In order for the government to know you are not just taking advantage of the rules, all of the details must be documented. You know, in case of audit. Speaking of which, a good piece of info to keep in mind is, the more deductions you take, the better your chance of being audited.
Do you do anything related to golf as a business? You could have some golf write-offs there as well. Maybe you’re a golf-blogger. Maybe you’ve turned it into a business, selling goods, services or something to that effect. Maybe you have a few partners. Maybe you have your meetings over dinner, or out on the course followed by some food and drinks in the 19th hole. Are you writing these things off?
Come to think of it…it seems the crew here at GolfStinks is due for a meeting among it’s partners. Maybe next Saturday is a good day for a meeting. The weather is supposed to be nice on Saturday, right?
Swing ’til you’re happy…and be sure to document it!