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Golf is a poor second to other things I like to do. And I'm at an age when the game is painful - before, during and after. Nor is it relaxing; I'd be more at ease in a tattoo parlor having the Declaration of Independence inked into my lower lip. But when there's nothing to fish for except my wallet and the next hunting season is two months away, golf fills the gap.
The two games are somewhat similar. Both are shooting sports and the players count each launch of a projectile at the target a shot. And the object of both is to get as many birdies as possible.
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| Mulligan's country club and birdie. |
Guns and golf clubs are identified by numbers that fit their trajectories. Golfers and hunters both measure their distances in yards and choose their shooting irons accordingly.
Both sports require distinctive costumes, not only to better play the game, but also to identify with the sport. Avid players have been known to court, marry, breed, die and be buried in Izod or Real Tree. And to chase their game in off road vehicles.
The most obvious difference between the two games is their logic.
Golf is decidedly illogical; in fact somewhat mad. How does it make sense to put the projectile on the ground and hit it with a stick when the target is two to four football fields away?
Why is the target an out of sight hole in the ground marked by a flag everyone shoots at but doesn't intend to hit? And here's the most ludicrous part; When the ball is finally in the cup, you get nothing for it except your own ball back - not even a cookie.
Why not put the projectile in a tube backed by some pressure source that launches it at a visible target? Better yet, a target that is edible? For the seriously hungry, make the target big; a turkey is perfect. For the well fed, or those of gourmet persuasions, make the target small but tasty; a woodcock for example. And for those with average appetites, ducks, quail and pheasants satisfy.
Never-the-less, the two sports are inexorably linked in history. It is a fact known only by the most celebrated of golf historians that the game was not invented in Scotland, but by an Irish birdhunter named Mulligan. Driven mad by his futile attempts to knock grouse from the sky with a stick, the frustrated Irishman skinned a roadkill bird, turned it inside out into a feather filled ball and began knocking his birdie into, rather than out of, the air. Stalking the meadows, his country club in hand and flailing away at his birdies, Mulligan quickly regained his sanity.
Physicians noted the cure, took up the sport themselves and recommended it to their patients. In no time, Mulligan was so busy manufacturing country clubs and birdies that he neglected his mash, which soured. He was able to salvage only its liquor, which has been a by product of golf ever since.
Meanwhile, in Italy, a rabbit farmer named Guido Bogardis was being impoverished by Gypsies disguised as Easter Bunnies who stole into his pastures and hopped off with his hares. One day at Mass, praying for relief, Guido noticed that the tithing boxes were screened on both sides so everyone could see the money but only pastors could poach it.
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| Circa 1870 double Bogey with rare trapdoor breech. |
Thus inspired, the farmer hurried home to make a pile of pilfer proof boxes and carefully stuff a pair of rabbits in each. Free from distractions, the bunnies bred at every turn. The inventor was soon rich and famous, given the title of Marquis de Bogey, gifted with all the land he could see and the right to keep two mistresses.
Bogey fell easily into the gentlemanly Italian habit of breakfast, stress relief with his morning mistress, lunch, stress relief with his afternoon mistress, dinner, stress relief with his wife, and bed. But soon he began to notice that his noble tights were becoming ignobly tighter and decided he needed some exercise.
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| Italianesque breakopen double Bogey with side hammers, circa 1895. |
He choose bird hunting. With his schedule already crowded, he needed something to speed up the hunt. Always the inventor, Bogey put two single barreled long fowlers together side by side joined with one butt stock - the first double Bogey.
The term when applied to the two rabbits per cage, the two mistresses per man, and the two barrels per shotgun became the triple Bogey. In any case, experts believe that the Irish, ever scornful of the overindulgent Italian lifestyle, borrowed the term to identify the number of stupid shots over par.
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| Vintage boxlock double Bogey with single trigger, circa 1950. |
In turn, the Italians thought the Irish uncouth morons who took two shots off the first tee and counted them as one; and called the madness a Mulligan.
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| Birdie with Double Bogey |
I am not so prejudiced. I take my Mulligans without shame and my birdies with double Bogeys.
© 2007 Arni Dunathan
Arni Dunathan is the author of the newly published collector's guide "The Encyclopedia of MARBLE'S Knives and Sporting Collectables." |
