What is a Golf Widow?

For me, it meant that I resented my husband, to the point of wanting to shoot him in the head, but thankfully, it was easy to pretend that he was already dead . Otherwise, I might be in prison today, and who’d have raised our kids?

The truth is that he loved golf much more than he loved me. The golf course was where he believed he was king. He got off on it. It gave him a kick and a boost of self esteem. No one could swing that stupid thing better than he did, so the golf course became like a mistress to him. Somewhere, “out there,” he had a wife and three kids, so that was enough for him. On the rare occasions when he came home, the kids would be sleeping and I’d be exhausted from doing everything on my own. I’d try to explain how many hours there are in a day, but time was a concept that he knew nothing of. He simply couldn’t understand why I would demand that he ever come home. He’s say, “I need my space,” but how many acres does it take to get enough space between the golfer and his family? “I need to play,” he’d say. Well, okay. So where did that leave me?

It left me alone and on my own for twenty-three years of married irony. The enigma is hard to describe. The golf widow is still married, legally, to someone she never sees, visually. In her effort to survive the golfer in her life, she begins to pretend he’s no longer alive. I wonder how many times I visualized his funeral in my mind? What I wore to his funeral, how I cried at his funeral and how happily I’d get on with my life, became a normal routine in my mind. The fantasy made more sense to me than the reality ever did.

Why didn’t I learn to play golf too? If I did, who would raise the kids? Who would pay the bills and who would know where we lived? Someone had to stay home. Golf takes too long to play, and an avid golfer can never get enough time or space to play. I can’t comprehend what the pleasure is. Why is it true that a ball and a club is more appealing than the ones you say you love?