“Rich white men talking on cell phones and adjusting their pants.” The previous sentence fragment is the only response I could imagine uttering to the question “Josh, could you explain the game of golf to me?”

Having never been on a golf course, you can imagine my exhilaration when I was recruited as a hole-watcher for the 2002 Golf Classic at a local country club.

All types were represented by the gathered golfers that chilly Monday: tubby rich men, slightly more tubby rich men, downright hefty rich men, and life-threateningly obese rich men. True, not all of these men were rich by corporate definitions, but anyone who is able to skip a day of work and slap down $100 for a round of golf is wealthier than some obscene percentage of the world’s population. The overweight claim needs no such qualification. They were all overweight by any standard you could apply.

You read my second paragraph correctly, I was a hole-watcher. I watched a hole. There were three hole-in-one prizes, which I can only assume were devised to bait the golfers off of their cell phones and onto the green. It seems that for these men a day on the course is less about playing golf than it is about looking like you’re really too busy to be playing golf. Anyway, I was watching a hole for which the prize was $5000 in cash.

Eager to fulfill my task, I had practiced watching the night before, first watching a pencil, then the leg of a snack tray. Later I tried watching Larry King but swiftly returned to the snack tray. I showed up at the event in top form. Vigilant. Looking. After waiting patiently for several cell phone conversations to end, my questions were answered and I had my mission: to watch hole 2 for holes-in-one. It was of no small import to me that my employer, who will remain nameless, had determined the watchedness of this hole to be worth a day of my wages. And I would not see them disappointed.

As an event coordinator debriefed me, I tried to impress her by casually watching a few things behind her. This did not seem to work. Still, I knew of the excellence in my gaze, and everything seemed super, until she showed me to my cart.

Golf carts are a menace to human well-being on a level with medieval torture machinery and any bio-chemical weapon. Their natural state is rolling down a hill, thanks to their equivalent height and length, and “driving” one really consists more of postponing the inevitable descent. If there were an amusement park ride which safely and slowly recreated the experience of riding in a golf cart, I would not go near it.

So distracted was I by my imminent death that I failed to notice right away the complete absence of signs or labels of any kind to indicate which tee was which. Even more significantly, there was nothing to denote what was a tee at all, and not a random patch of earth. I careened around the grounds aimlessly for a while, nearly perishing about nine times before I came upon a golf course serf working the fields. He was kind enough to show me to my hole, and I set about my task.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had the opportunity to watch the same unchanging patch of earth for six uninterrupted hours, but let me be the first to recommend it to you.

Nothing else I’ve tried has done so much for my sense of emotional balance. After an experience like this, you can say to yourself “Okay, that was the most desperately empty and cheerless episode in my now seemingly worthless life, I guess I’m due for an amazing streak of happiness and good fortune!” I’m still waiting.

At this point some well-meaning readers may be thinking “Well, Josh, what about the prospect of someone hitting a hole-in-one?” I assure you this was never considered even remotely possible.

To be fair, I was not always alone. Every hour or so a new quartet of portly putters would waddle by and ask if I’d seen where their drives had landed. They knew full well that they hadn’t made it within 500 yards of the green, but each acted surprised when I pointed to some spot behind the food tent or the maintenance shed. Occasionally they would address me personally. The exchange was usually something like this:

Man in Garish Clothes: Hey, Boss. You guardin’ that $5000?
Me: Um, I suppose in theory I – well, no, not really.
MIGC: Did you see how close my buddy came to the hole, Big Guy?
Me: I sure did. It’s alright. It’s just a game isn’t it?
MIGC: You’re gonna give it to us, right Chief?
Me: Excuse me?
MIGC: C’mon, that was so close! Give us a break, Sport!
Me: [feigns a stroke and lies motionless until golfers depart]

There was a certain measure of relief in the knowledge that my intense hole-watching had reduced the likelihood of catching even a glimpse of men playing golf, a sight which has been known to paralyze. Even a cursory glance at a man lining up a drive has been lab tested to retard and even reverse neural development.

I do have a question for men who golf. Why a hundred and forty seven practice swings? I would understand one or two, but every player I’ve observed takes exactly one hundred and forty seven practice swings before a tee off. Is it superstition? A test of endurance? An affirmation of life? Some kind of sexual presentation? Or do you just hate me?

By the time each player has teed off, recovered their Titleist, and inconspicuously dropped it back-handed onto the green, not only have three more teams accumulated at the tee, but nature itself seems weary. The trees and rocks have witnessed geological evolution that seems speedy by comparison.

There is a curious practice when a golfer finally finds himself on the green. He will putt until the ball is within a foot of the hole and then triumphantly snatch it up, assuming victory. On the surface this may seem reasonable, but it’s really quite audacious when one considers the utter incompetence the player has exhibited up to this point. Something as negligible as tapping a ball nine inches into a hole may be just what he needs to prove himself.

At the end of the day, I suppose I can’t complain. Oh wait, sure I can. I wasted a whole day staring at a hole, trying desperately to avoid looking up and into the void of human weakness. Between that and a trip to Hell in a golf cart, I guess I really can complain quite a bit. Hmm, this changes everything…!