The Best Job Ever

It won't be long until I get to do it again

Hickory Woods Golf course (Me)

And so it begins anew.

Monday was a highly agreeable day for February. Sixty degrees and sunny, a sparse wind from the South. Not quite San Diego. But close enough. There was only one thing to do.

My car knows the way. Right turn out of the neighborhood, another right on Branch Hill-Guinea, a left at the Kroger. Past the last, big tract of undeveloped land for miles, past the Oasis on the left, past the Methodist church. . .

Around here, you learn to live for days like this. Sixty in February always makes me feel like I’m getting away with something. We’ll pay for 60 in February somehow, and it won’t take long. Don’t put away that bubble jacket just yet. . .

Wards Corner turns one way and turns again. Maybe it was a farm lane long ago and none of those farmers sold their rights-of-way. So the road makers said fine, shrugged their shoulders and made the two-lane more curvy than Raquel Welch. . .

There’s a special feel to a golf course in February. I imagine it’s the same feel a grounds keeper gets at Great American Ball Park, a few days before the opener. Anticipation, maybe. Optimism, a new chance to get everything right for a change. The diamond is still an empty canvas. So is the 1st tee at Hickory Woods. . .

Right on Route 48, right on Smith. . .

How many times have I made this drive? I’ve lived here 35 years. I took up golf 30 years ago. Hickory’s my course. I’ve strayed occasionally. We lived for three years across the street from the 18th tee at Legendary Run. That was nice.

Played there some. Played The Vineyard almost as much. Sharon Woods, Glenview, California. Aston Oaks, which for me is about as far away as I can get without falling off the edge of the planet. The moon seems closer.

Right on Hickory Woods Drive, three-tenths of a mile. . .

(Me)

I’ve played Hickory Woods every month of the year. There hasn’t been a year gone by that I haven’t played there. There is just something about the place. It helps that half the city’s golfers don’t know it exists, or if they do know, they have no idea how to get there. It’s unpretentious. Hickory feels no need to prove itself to you. But it’s more than that. Last summer, my 30th at Hickory, I started to understand what it was.

Cincinnati is blessed with an abundance of public golf courses. Over the decades, whenever I wanted to amaze my East Coast friends — and, let’s be honest, wipe some of that East Coast smugness from their mugs — I told them how easy and cheap it was to play golf in the l’il ol’ Republic of Cincinnati. Worked every time.

You mean, you can just show up on a Saturday and get a tee time? For. . . how much?!?

It’s not that, either, though not having to sleep in my car to play 18 holes on a Sunday is certainly a plus.

It’s this:

Cleaning golf carts. I’m serious.

I retired from the Enquirer last July. I’d already been working in the cart barn at Hickory a couple months. It’s as good a job as I’ve ever had.

I like putting my brain in neutral for 10-12 hours a week. Mindless work allows the mind to roam freely. A roaming mind fosters creativity. Washing golf carts is rinse and repeat. Literally.

But there’s more to it. I simply love the people I work with and for. Writing is a solitary gig. Working at Hickory is anything but. After four decades of solitude, working with others is like stepping into the sunshine after a winter of snow.

The good bosses are the ones with a knack for getting the best out of their employees for one simple reason: Their workers like them so much, they don’t want to disappoint them.

That’s the feeling at Hickory Woods for the owner, Denny Acomb. I’ve known Denny forever. He gave my son Kelly a job on the grounds crew more than 20 years ago. But I never really knew Denny until last summer. Suffice to say he’s just a good dude. Laid back, considerate, appreciative. He makes you feel good in his presence.

As the summer advanced, I eased into a routine and grew to appreciate just how much is involved in making a golf course hum. I looked forward to the 6 AM Saturday arrivals, when one of my first duties was to place water jugs on four holes. That involved a drive through darkness as it yielded to sunrise. At that time of day, the golf course belongs to the animals.

I saw deer, rabbits, red foxes and a Cooper’s Hawk who, if he judged me to be too close to his nest off the 14th fairway, would follow my cart and occasionally swoop threateningly low.

And the sunrises were achingly beautiful.

I was back there on Monday, hitting shag balls on the range. Sixty degrees, sunshine, hope and renewal. So fortunate to be right there, right then. One of golf’s greatest attributes is the optimism it provokes. I’ve never met a golfer who didn’t think he’d get better at the game and that this year would be the year it would happen.

I’ve never known a hack who needed more than a couple great shots a round to convince himself that better days were ahead. I’ve never known the camaraderie on a golf course to be anything but honest and true. Whether I’m playing or working.

I was hitting the ball great Monday. Everything straight and deep, swing feeling like a craftsman assembled it at a Ferrari plant in Italy. Nothing at all, in other words, like the way it will feel when I’m actually on the tee box. No matter.

The psychologist Bob Rotella was wrong. Golf is a game of perfect. You just have to know how to define perfection.

The cart-barn season looms. I’m feeling pretty good about that.

(Me)

Now, then. . .

ONLY JOEY VOTTO among current Reds could be markedly impacted by Baseball’s new positioning rules, according to the stats-centric site, baseballsavant. It’s generally believed that lefty-swinging pull hitters will benefit most from the change that demands two infielders on each side of 2nd base.

For fantasy geeks such as me, ID’ng which hitters to consider drafting because of the rules change is pretty important. I got you, Corey Seager.

STICK TO SPORTS. . . Jimmy Carter is in home hospice care now. I met President Carter in 1996, at the Olympics in Atlanta. Several sports hacks had gathered for beers at a neighborhood bar in the Virginia-Highlands section of town. Not long after, Jimmy showed up. Not with a fleet of black limos and an army of security. Just two very big men. The president came over to our table, shook our hands, then bellied up to the bar for a soda.

He was a middling president. He remains a remarkable human being. After he left the White House, President Carter blessed us with his kindness, empathy for his fellow Americans and his generous spirit. What a fine example of how to live one’s life.

Our nation we will be diminished by his absence.

PRESIDENT BIDEN, contrary to radical right opinion, has done well in the Oval Office. He has done better than that in the realm of foreign affairs. He has handled deftly the morass in Ukraine, skillfully patching and rallying the NATO coalition, and holding it together when few believed he could.

Biden’s triumphant appearance in Kiev simply dotted the I.

I can’t imagine what would have become of Ukraine had Biden not won in 2020.

BECAUSE TV IS MY LIFE. . . Life is good. We breezed through Season 1 of Boardwalk Empire. I’m nearly done re-watching Season 1 of Twin Peaks, which is better than I remembered it, and it was great the first time. Enjoying Accused, Mayor of Kingstown, Tulsa King. Really enjoyed the 1st episode of Season 4 of You, a show that looked to have peaked in its 1st season.

Your Honor’s 2nd season is better than its first, and Season 1 was compelling.

Now just bring on Succession and I’ll be a perfectly happy boy.

NOT JUST A PRETTY FACE. . . I’m plowing through The Mosquito Bowl, Buzz Bissinger’s fascinating re-telling of a pick-up football game between two Marine units fighting on Okinawa in 1945. Next up: Huck Finn. Seriously.

I’ve committed to re-reading the American classics. Twain now, then Faulkner and Hemingway. And of course, Catcher in the Rye, banned by lunatics nationwide. Is there a specific classic book you think I should read? Lemme know.

TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . An absolutely killer riff, arguably the best of all time, written by an orchestra leader of all people. Done very right here by Duane Eddy and a Clarence-esque sax man.