Howard

 

Every Saturday morning,

and sometimes Sundays,

Howard played disc golf with the guys.

They’d been playing together for years. 

 

Howard loved playing disc golf,

but he just wasn’t very good at it.

It’s not that he was horrible,

or even that bad.

You wouldn’t be embarrassed to be seen with him.

But he just wasn’t very good.

I mean, he should’ve been.

He’d been playing for long enough.

Sure, he could sink an amazing putt

every now and then,

or make a really good drive,

between the really bad ones.

But when everything was tallied up

Howard always came in last.

Not that any of the other guys gave a rip.

Howard was the only one keeping score.

 

Sure, the other guys talked about getting better,

or remembered when they actually might’ve been better,

but nobody actually got better.

Instead, they spent their time on the course telling bad jokes,

making up silly songs about playing disc,

and smoking the occasional joint,

while shanking their drives into the water,

hitting every tree possible

(and a few that shouldn’t’ve been possible),

and missing five foot putts.

And, yeah, they’d complain about their games

(especially missing the five foot putts).

But what it came down to,

the only thing they truly cared about

was hanging out with their friends on Saturday mornings,

and sometimes Sundays, too.

 

Don’t get me wrong. 

Howard liked hanging out with the other guys.

He always looked forward to playing on the weekends.

But it especially bothered him

that he wasn’t as good

as he thought he should’ve been.

 

So he hired a disc golf coach.

A trained professional.

He actually paid money –

quite a bit of money –

to have that trained professional

examine every aspect of his game.

Not just the mechanics,

but everything:

What time of day he played,

what he had for breakfast,

the ambient temperature,

what clothes he wore,

the colour of his discs.

And who he played with.

 

And what that trained professional discovered

was that there was nothing fundamentally wrong

with Howard’s game.

The problem was who he played with.

 

Sure, they were a great bunch of guys,

but because none of them took the game seriously,

then as long as Howard played with them

he could never take his game seriously, either.

He would never improve.

If Howard ever hoped to be better,

to be good,

really good,

to compete,

then he couldn’t play with his buddies.

Ever again.

 

And that’s what Howard did. 

He stopped playing with all of his friends.

At first he made up excuses,

like he wasn’t feeling well,

or he had to help out around the house.

He figured if he didn’t improve

he could go back to the group,

and they’d never know the difference.

 

But he did improve.

His drives got straighter and longer.

His up shots were spot on.

He was routinely sinking 30 and 40 foot putts.

He could weave in and out of the trees.

He could roll when necessary,

and skip on purpose, even off the water.

Aiming actually made a difference.

In short he became good.

Very good.

 

He even started playing in tournaments.

And he often won.

Well, maybe not overall,

but in his age group he routinely finished in the top five.

And sometimes he was in the top five overall.

He won things,

like discs and bags and even money.

And that meant turning pro.

Well, yeah, he was never going to get rich playing disc golf.

Nobody is.

But a local pro shop gave him free discs

for wearing their shirts at tournaments,

which is more than most players ever do.

Seriously.

The guy was good.

Other disc golfers,

guys he’d never met,

knew who he was.

 

And somewhere in there,

he stopped trying to make up excuses

for not playing with his old friends.

He just stopped showing up on Saturday mornings,

and he never answered any of the text messages,

even though he was still part of the group.

 

It was at a tournament a couple of states over,

maybe a year later.

All the players got bottled up on that one hole,

like they do at every tournament.

And there Howard had been sitting for about half an hour

with his turn still fifteen minutes away.

Everybody else was so focused on the game

that if Howard even tried to talk to them,

much less tell a joke,

they’d ignore him,

or outright tell him to shut up,

expletives included.

Of course,

that was no different from how they always acted,

at every tournament.

At every game.

In short,

they were all assholes.

 

And it was there that Howard realized

he was probably an asshole, too.

 

And it was there that he realized

when you play really well

it becomes really boring.

It was boring to make every throw straight down the fairway.

It was boring to put every up shot on the dance floor.

It was even boring to hardly ever miss a putt.

 

But more that that,

worse than that –

way worse –

it just wasn’t fun anymore.

It wasn’t fun to play with people he really didn’t like.

It wasn’t fun to play with people who never told jokes,

who never sang songs,

who never smoked the occasional joint.

 

And when it was finally Howard’s turn to tee off,

instead of continuing on with the game,

he walked off the course,

and he went home.

 

And that Saturday

he joined all of his friends

for their weekly round of disc golf.

And, sure, they all knew where Howard had been.

But they didn’t care.

They were just happy to have him back.

And Howard was happy to be back, too.

He didn’t even complain when he missed the five foot putt.

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