Sunday, September 18, 2011

My cold has turned into a mild case of the flu, and the weather is gray and damp. It’s a perfect day to do a whole lot of nothing, but R & R isn’t part of the agenda. I’ve told Val Russell that I’ll meet him at Cog Hill in suburban Lemont for the final round of the PGA’s BMW Championship, so I’m out the door at 8 a.m. (In case you can’t remember or haven’t been following this blog all the way through, I edit Val’s local golf paper, Chicago Area Golf.)

Val and I are supposed to catch up in the media center at 10 a.m. From there, he’ll introduce me to some folks who might be able to assist me in my job search. I arrive at Cog Hill an hour early, of course—I’m obsessively early about pretty much everything.

 As I walk the grounds while waiting for Val, my mind takes me back about 20 years to the first pro golf tournament I ever covered, the LPGA’s Corning Classic in upstate Corning, N.Y. In those days, I was sports editor of a daily newspaper in the area called The Leader, and this tournament was a big deal. The entire region rallied around the Classic—everyone was watching—so we had to be at our best.

Most of all, we didn’t want to be outdone by our competition up the road: the cads in the sports department at the Elmira Star-Gazette. It was like the Sharks vs. the Jets in West Side Story, with a couple notable exceptions: (1) No one sang, and (2) we carried pens and notepads instead of switchblades.

But there was still plenty of drama. We’d exchange cutting words in the buffet line and glare at each other menacingly across putting greens. And when all was said and done—when the final words had been written about the tournament—our sports section had shredded their sports section to pieces. That’s my story anyway, and I’m sticking to it.

My Cog Hill excursion is decidedly different from those Corning Classic rumbles. Val and I chat about Chicago Area Golf and hobnob with some people in the media center. Afterward, we walk to the perfectly positioned BMW box (to which we gain entrance because Val flashes his BMW key ring) and take in splendid views of a cluster of holes. Then we head back to the media center for a first-rate lunch and more chitchat. All in all, it’s a pleasant and mildly productive day.

But as I’m driving home, it occurs to me that something significant was missing out there at Cog Hill: the thrill of battle, be it against the black hats from the Star-Gazette or the deadline for a project. This realization might sound like a bummer, but it’s really not. At least I know I still have the fire.