We’ve waited for this. For the rumors and the shiny black fields. We’ve heard from somebody that Friday morning the flags will fly, from somebody else, not for another week. The out-of-bounds cornfields, clumpy and wet, covered now by only the warming air of spring, the only remaining white in the acres of black mud, the sliced tee-offs from last fall. We drive by the places that we’ve been deprived of all winter long, hoping to see the places we fear the most alive again. A flag stick on the first green flopping in the wind, a water hazard unthawed and overflowing into the fairway.

The bleak weather and disparaging temperatures are over now; wind chills and ice patches harsh enough to break ceiling fans and kitchen cups most likely gone. The illusion that the perfectly groomed grass of the West Coast Swing is actually in our living rooms and not on the TV has disappeared. We no longer have to take the chance that our back swing will not reach as high as the ceiling, that our ten-foot par saves will not shatter another drinking glass because the carpet slopes away from the coffee table, not towards it.

We’ve waited for this, and for most of us that haven’t wintered in places where our golf bags aren’t just another space-eater in the closet, our first swing of the year reminds us that what made us so miserable all winter long, might not be over. But playing golf here in PRIME country after a hard winter doesn’t mean we should worry that our golf swings have suffered just as much as our car batteries. Playing the first round of golf here is much more than realizing that completing a full follow through with a snow shovel all winter does not correlate to strokes on the scorecard. Playing that first round is more of an affirmation that we have survived this place.

The white blanket that covered our courses for the past however many months could not smother us with our own swing sorrows or our desperate needs to be standing on a smooth green reading the line of a snowman saving putt. As the first wooden tee slides into a soggy tee box, we know that we made it. Although our dream season is finally here, what do we do to survive our own golf games now? How do we know that the worst qualities of winter have not snuck into our Saturday rounds? We waited for these warm days during those cold temps just as we wait for the clink of our golf ball now; that rolling sound in the bottom of the cup; a soft circling golf ball; our first birdie of the year. Winter to be over quicker, a birdie putt to drop, both things that never happen as much as we would like.

Even though at times, the two are the same, both with a constant aspect of bickering and complaining, golf season is here now. We shouldn’t worry that we might feel the same cold of winter if we actually do slip into the drink trying to retrieve another ball. There is no need for us to complain or get sour on the course because if there is one thing that golf has that winter doesn’t, it’s a four-wheeled, beverage-bringing cart, waiting for us at the next hole.