Forethoughts: An Easy Call to Make

Jon Rizzi | Colorado AvidGolfer

The punter? Why, when we have a team with the most prolific offense in NFL history, would we put on the cover a player whose very presence on the field represents a failure to score?

Because the Denver Broncos’ Britton Colquitt scores on the golf course. His 2.2 index is the lowest on the team—yes, even lower than Peyton Manning’s 4.8—and he’ll be competing this month with other athletes and entertainers at the 25th American Century Championship at the Edgewood Tahoe Golf Course.

Furthermore, as Contributing Editor Sam Adams discovers during his interview with Colquitt, punting a football and hitting a golf ball have more in common than you might think. Getting an oblong object to stop dead inches of the opponent’s end zone from 50 yards away is akin to sticking a small dimpled orb within a foot of the hole from the same distance—although most of us would be hard-pressed to do either against an onslaught of 230-pound men.

We do, however, face other distractions during a round: slow golfers, hovering “player assistants,” fetching beverage servers and voluble playing partners who constantly curse and use their cell phones.

I can tune out just about every distraction—including the cutest cart girls. But I’m not so good when it comes to others making phone calls, texting and checking messages. And it’s not because I find such behavior obnoxious or incompatible with the “sanctity” of the game.

Like just about every other golfer, I bring my cell phone to the course. It’s an appurtenance that’s as indispensible as my car keys and wallet. I mute it and stick it in my golf bag—or in the cart compartment—and forget about it.

That is, until others check their phones and I’m immediately reminded of the myriad deadlines and obligations from which golf provides a blissful four-hour escape. My mind then ping-pongs from family issues to work issues and to whatever deadline I’m on. Then, usually while waiting for the group ahead, I check the phone to give myself peace of mind.

Call it a rabbit hole or a black hole, but once I go down it, it gets harder for me to put the ball into the remaining holes on the course.

I’m not alone. A prominent local businessman I once interviewed told me that whenever he took a call during a round, “everything would fall apart.” He stopped bringing his phone to the course because it “ruined too many good games.”

I think I’ll follow suit. The dangers of cell phone use behind the wheel has prompted Colorado to enact laws against distracted driving. The dangers of cell phone use while playing golf has prompted me to impose a personal prohibition against distracted driving—as well as pitching, chipping and putting.

Faced with the choice of whether to keep the phone in my bag “just in case,” I recently elected just to leave the round-killer in the car. In other words, I punted—and damn proud I did.

Colorado AvidGolfer is the state’s leading resource for golf and the lifestyle that surrounds it. It publishes eight issues annually and proudly delivers daily content via www.coloradoavidgolfer.com.