I knew the Bhutan Open was going to be, well, different from the U.S. Open. But this different?
As I drove up to the Royal Thimphu clubhouse at seven-fifteen a.m., it was chilly and drizzling. The parking lot was empty except for a small huddle of people by the clubhouse. They were the cooks (all men) and waiters (all women), and they were sipping tea and rubbing their hands to stay warm. The course, too, was deserted. There were no big white corporate tents, no electronic scoreboards, no gallery ropes.
The practice tee also was dead. None of the other one hundred competitors were honing their swings, practicing their wedges, or grooving their rhythm. I suppose they were all asleep or having breakfast. Carrie (my wife) had gone out to a couple of bars last night, and when she came home at about eleven, she told me that she'd seen many of the club members reveling. By the first tee, Shayam, the starter, and Tshering, the super, were hanging a small banner on two bamboo poles. The banner said, 2002 BHUTAN OPEN.
There was, however, one sign of life. Benji was standing on the clubhouse steps, gazing out over the course. As I stood next to him, he began talking, but not to me. He continued looking out over the course. It was as if he were delivering a soliloquy. "I feel great," said Benji, his voice raspy but full of life. "A bit tired, because I was out all night and didn't sleep a wink, but maybe that'll play to my advantage."
As we stood there chatting, players began arriving, but they didn't resemble contenders for a national championship. Potbellied and middle-aged men with dirty golf shoes, spotted khakis, and argyle sweaters were dragging huge staff bags, the ones tour players use, on pull carts. Golf bags in the rest of the world have gotten dramatically smaller over the past decade, because people have finally begun to realize that having a 75-pound leather behemoth for a golf bag is not only impractical but also a big chore. But the opposite has happened in Bhutan, where bigger bags are the rage. The Bhutanese want to emulate professionals as much as possible, and the tour player bags are one way they can do that. Size doesn't matter in Bhutan, because everybody uses a pull cart.
The Bhutanese love gadgets, too. So hanging from the bags were steel bristled-groove cleaning brushes and plastic teeholders, things that no professional would be caught dead with on his bag. As for hitting practice balls, that was not a priority this morning for most players, either. "We don't practice before competitions" said I. J., a diminutive Indian Army officer. I. J. was wearing a small straw hat, the same kind that was Chi Chi Rodriguez's trademark. "Practice will make our handicaps too low, and then we won't get enough strokes in the tournament. But I would like to begin coaching with you after the tournament, okay?"
I was shaking when I reached the first tee at eight a.m. Never mind that most of the players in the field were everyday hackers playing with the same expectations as somebody buying a lottery ticket, and that only a few of the entrants could break 80. I was as nervous as I'd ever been in an amateur or college tournament. My problem wasn't that since arriving in Bhutan I'd played only a few nine-hole rounds. No, I hadn't played in a real tournament in several years, so my mind was awash with uncertainty, which is a sure recipe for disaster in competitive golf. My three playing partners, however, were as calm as monks.
"Did you go out last night?" asked Dema, a short man whose teenage daughter attended my youth clinics.
"No. Having a baby doesn't leave much free time," I said.
"Don't you have a babysitter?" asked Pema Tshering, another member of our foursome. Pema's surprise that I had stayed home on a Friday night to take care of Claudia wasn't surprising. The Bhutanese men at Royal Thimphu, like golfers everywhere else, don't change many diapers.
