Different Strokes

My first golf lesson, from a macho pro at a Caribbean resort, was so miserable that I didn’t play again for five years.

I wilted under the broiling sun and the scornful gaze of my instructor, who ordered me to do this, do that--rarely disguising his disgust at having to teach a nervous neophyte instead of a real golfer who could appreciate his pithy pointers. I ditched the sport faster than I could yell “Fore!”

But then I married a man who believes that a bad day on the golf course is better than a good day just about anywhere else. David wanted to play as a pair wherever a tee time could be scored--especially on vacation.

With much pessimism, I reluctantly tried golf again last May. This time, however, I chose a female instructor at a Tucson resort program designed for and by women. The difference knocked the chip off my shoulder and into my shots. Three days of lessons and one round of golf at the Lodge at Ventana Canyon, with its two championship 18-hole courses nestled in a valley of the Santa Catalina Mountains, ignited my enthusiasm for the game.

The National Golf Foundation estimates 27 million people play the sport nationwide, and 10 million of those folks do so while on trips. Forty percent of all beginners are women--at 1.2 million last year, the fastest-growing segment in the sport.

For many female novices like me, though, golf has seemed like an intimidating sport dominated by men. Only after more resorts began offering programs specifically for us--with instructors (often women) who understand our learning style, our body shape, our sensibilities--was I willing to give it another shot.

I chose the Lodge at Ventana Canyon for its beginner golf schools. A three-day program called Women to the Fore was an easygoing introduction to the sport, not the week of killer training offered at some places.

On my first morning at the lodge, instructor Allison Carter and I found a spot among a dozen other golfers on the practice range.

“Women tend to like more explanation, a more supportive teaching style and a more social environment than men do,” said Carter, a Ladies Professional Golf Assn. veteran with a decade of teaching experience. “Male teachers seldom understand that more nurturing approach because guys just want to be told what to do and then left to do it.”

Carter’s students range from teens to seniors and include beginners like me, who want to play 18 holes with their spouse without embarrassment. Some are businesswomen who see golf as a networking tool or homemakers looking for exercise in the fresh air.

I grimaced as Carter pushed a little white tee into the ground near my toes--a flash of deja vu that sent dread from my stomach to a knot in my throat. “You’re going to do fine,” she assured me. “It’s just a game.”

Armed with a bucket of yellow range balls, a rental bag full of clubs ($45 for the duration of the program) and a picture book of top women golfers with perfect form as they swung and followed through, Carter patiently took me through the basics.

She taught me the difference in clubs: the big, low-to-the-ground, flat-faced drivers, used for power; the pitching and sand wedge, tilted upward for loft; the lightweight putter. I learned to stand with my legs hip-width apart, knees slightly bent, shoulders relaxed. I held the club with my left hand curled around the handle, three knuckles showing on top, and my right palm nesting over the left thumb.

I practiced subtle sweeping motions, trying to get my rhythm down pat for short-distance chipping and putting. By Day 2, I advanced to full swings that eventually would send the ball zipping over the fairway (I hoped).

“Golf is about swinging the club, not just about hitting the ball,” Carter said again and again.

“As a woman golfer, you have the disadvantage of weaker upper body and arm strength than men, but the advantage of better flexibility and balance. Unfortunately many teachers focus on an ideal swing that doesn’t take those factors into account.”

By the end of the second day, I was beginning to feel pretty cocky with a club--until Carter played a video of me in action.

I looked like an oaf: lurching side to side, jerking the club backward and forward as if I were swatting flies. It didn’t help that Carter also had filmed herself--as graceful as a gazelle. She was a ballet of perfect swings, sending the ball in a lovely arc deep down the fairway.

It was time, nonetheless, to test my game. Some teaching programs don’t bring novice golfers onto the greens and fairways. Women to the Fore takes a different stance: Just do it. No matter how badly one plays, a golfer still can enjoy the Lodge at Ventana Canyon’s swaths of lush green fairway, patches of glistening lake hazard and curls of gritty sand trap. Carved out of the mountains, the course incorporates natural rock formations, mesquite groves and stands of prickly pear, ocotillo and cholla cactus.

Despite my lackluster performance on the video, I felt better, thanks to Carter. She was a gregarious pro who laughed with me at my blunders and rewarded my successes with high-fives and an occasional hug. She made sure that I not only learned the sport but also enjoyed it.

So, early on my third day, Carter and I headed for my playing lesson: four holes of coaching-in-motion on the Mountain Course.

To my dismay, the first tee was in prime view of half the guest rooms, including my own. I don’t know why I thought my debut would be a private affair, but seeing other golfers behind me waiting their turn and the lodge’s windows facing me, I felt flush with self-consciousness. I pictured my husband, lounging on our terrace, coffee cup raised to lips, shaking his head at the blond hacker spoiling his idyllic view. (In fact, at that moment David was having his own problems on the easier Canyon Course, his wife far from his thoughts.)

I teed off, with Carter advising me on club selection, the lay of the land, the slope of the green and proper etiquette.

Foursomes were behind and ahead of us, and though they smiled at my klutzy play--I might as well have worn a neon sign blaring “Student Golfer”--no one told me to take my time.

“You needn’t play well, but you must always play fast,” Carter said. I hastily approached each tee the minute my turn came, took one practice swing, then hit the ball.

“Other players will empathize with your lack of skill, but they won’t put up with your holding them back,” she said, articulating a golf maxim, “Relax but hurry,” that I have yet to comprehend.

Too excited to put into practice most of Carter’s instruction, I frequently missed the ball, knocked it a foot or less forward, or sent it whizzing left or right (hook or slice) into cactus or water hazards.

Amazingly, I conquered the lodge’s signature No. 3 hole, a short but challenging beauty where players hit over a wide, rocky canyon onto a small island of green surrounded by spiky saguaro. Euphorically, I watched my tee shot sail 67 yards and hit the green on my first swing; then I one-putted the ball for a birdie. Carter applauded, and I bowed to the stands of saguaro, the closest I’ll get to a cheering gallery.

My 90-minute class each morning always finished before 11, when the Tucson sun begins to get strong. With driving and putting practice not until the afternoon, I had time for leisurely lunches with my husband, who took a few advanced lessons of his own from another instructor.

Spa treatments (each $80 to $100) soothed my aching muscles. A 50-minute massage designed especially for golfers stretched arm and leg muscles; a 75-minute massage using smooth, heated stones felt good all over; and a reflexology session with peppermint lotion made me feel human again.

For exercise beyond golf, I walked around the 2 1/2-mile par-course trail, hiked into the mountains or swam laps in an 80-foot heated pool. I was too wiped out from my golf lessons to participate in other excursions--the four-hour Jeep trip into the mountains or a hot-air balloon ride over the desert. At night, I conked out soon after dinner--and Ben Gay.

With my lessons complete, I challenged my husband to a game. It started well enough. David patiently counseled where to aim from the tee. (“The fairway is that flat green part, honey; you know, not the trees, not the sand.”) He complimented every decent swing. (“Nice one, babe--shame about that lake.”) He even graciously provided his shoe as a guidepost for putts. (“Aim for my right foot, love--no, my other right foot.”)

But somewhere around the 10th hole, our harmony soured. It had something to do with the sandwiches we had ordered via intercom on the course and picked up at the snack bar en route to the back nine. I wanted mustard on my BLT; David was rushing me. (“This is not a lunch date; it’s a golf game.”)

I didn’t take off my gloves, and mustard splattered all over the white leather, and I got angry (“Look what happens when you rush me”), and he got hostile (“Why can’t you just go with the game plan?”). We played the final nine holes tense with resentment.

David and I later vowed to treat each other with kid golf gloves in the future, and we toasted our first game with champagne at dinner.

He is thrilled that I’ve stuck with the sport. For my birthday he surprised me with a set of nice Big Bertha woods and a snazzy putter. For our anniversary, he gave me pink poodle-head club covers along with a card that said, “Hope I’m barking up the right tee.”

Now, he’s pushing his luck.

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GUIDEBOOK

Tee Time in Tucson

Getting there: Southwest and United airlines fly nonstop from LAX to Tucson. Round-trip fares start at $88.

Where to stay: The 50-suite Lodge at Ventana Canyon, 6200 N. Clubhouse Lane, Tucson, AZ 85750, telephone (800) 828- 5701, fax (520) 577-4065, Internet https://www.grandbay.com, offers three-day Women to the Fore golf packages year-round. Includes two 90-minute classes (four-student maximum), one four-hole playing lesson, unlimited use of driving range and practice putting greens, one-hour massage, double room and daily breakfast. Price varies depending on time of year, $690-$1,060 per room with one golfer (staying alone or with a companion), and $1,080-$1,710 per room with two golfers. Regular suite rates run $199-$699 per night per room. (For more resorts with programs for women, see story at right.)

Where to eat: El Charro, 311 N. Court Ave., Tucson, local tel. 622-1922, Mexican, entrees $10-$15. Cafe Terra Cotta, 4310 N. Campbell Ave., Tucson, tel. 577-8100, Southwestern, entrees $18-$24. Janos (at the Westin La Paloma Resort), 3770 E. Sunrise Drive, Tucson, tel. 742-6000, Southwestern and Continental, entrees $26-$35. The Tack Room, 7300 E. Vactor Ranch Trail (at Sabino Canyon Road), Tucson, tel. 722-2800, a Tucson institution, steaks and Continental, entrees $29-$39.

For more information: Metropolitan Tucson Convention and Visitors Bureau, 130 S. Scott Ave., Tucson, AZ 85701, tel. (800) 638-8350, fax (520) 884-7804, Internet https://www.visittucson.org.