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By Dom Cioffi
I've always been a bit of a solo golfer. Although I do not mind playing with other people, I find that to be able to play my best golf, I have to be totally focused on my game. When I play a game with another person or group I tend to be caught up in conversations, which ends up distracting me.
I guess it's the blood of competition in me. I'm always looking for my lowest round and I know it will only be possible with serious attention.
Non-golfers may not have understood this, but golf, more than any other sport I've practiced, requires a lot of analysis and concentration. And even if the sport feels heat because of its supposed physical lack (which is totally false), it can exhaust you beyond description if you stay for four hours under intense concentration.
I also like to play alone because I like the connective aspect of wandering in a natural environment for hours. Strolling on a golf course on a beautiful afternoon is a way that I feel rooted in the world.
That said, some of my most memorable golf games happened while I was playing with others. A few years ago, I had one of these experiences and it's always with me.
From time to time, approaching the first tee, people ask me to join when they realize that I am alone. At first, it was disappointing for me for the reasons mentioned above, but I learned over the years that it was going well in 99% of cases.
On this occasion, a guy in his mid-fifties rolled his push cart up to the tee and asked if he could follow him. I agreed, I shook his hand to introduce myself and I prepared to leave. He did the same thing.
It only took one shot from his club to realize that this guy was not a golfer. Fortunately, it was a remarkable character, who can always compensate for a bad part.
We played several holes before the subtleties dissolve into an informal conversation. It was at this point that his penchant for conspiracy theories appeared. I do not remember the subject of the bridge, but soon enough, I realized that this guy was deeply convinced that the world was full of big conspiracies.
He spoke about his perceived problems with 9/11 and the role played by the government in overthrowing the Twin Towers. I listened carefully, never letting it be known that I was beginning to think that he was a little disturbed. In fact, I fanned the flames by asking more and more questions, pretending to be interested in everything he said.
And I was interested, but not in his theories. I was more intrigued by the massive credulity of this guy. The more he spoke, the less he was interested in his own game of golf. After a while, he even started to pick up his balloon.
Finally, he joined NASA and the space program where, he said, he had conducted intensive research and discovered a treasure trove of evidence that Apollo missions on the moon were totally false. He even mentioned having published his own book on the subject himself.
That's when I started to really press his buttons, acting as if I was accepting each of his points. As I have learned, conspiracy theorists love nothing more than to indoctrinate others in their elaborate narratives.
Over the years, I had heard that NASA simulated the landing of the moon – that the entire mission was a carefully repeated production filmed at a very secretive sound stage – but I did not never lent faith. This guy spent the next hours highlighting all the problems he remembered, photographic evidence of lunar rocks labeled as props to the repetition of lunar backgrounds appearing on different pictures distant from each other.
In the end, I rather enjoyed my stay with this guy. And when I went home, out of the blue, I spent several hours looking for lunatic hoaxes, finally deciding that you had to be a bit off-kilter to really believe that there was never a mission on the moon. Moon.
This week's film, "First Man", recreates the Apollo missions in which Neil Armstrong played a central role, eventually becoming the first human to walk on another celestial body.
This film deals with both Armstrong's relationship with his family and his command of the lunar landings. Behind the story, there is a fascinating story that people may not have considered.
Check this one if you like historical dramas. Just be ready for a deep dive into the troubled personal life of an American icon.
A weightless "B" for "the first man".
Do you have a question or comment for Dom? You can send him an email at [email protected].
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