by Randy Steinberg
Let me begin where most stories do: in the past. My maternal grandmother was both an accomplished golfer and a skilled pianist — club champion on the links and proficient tickler of the ivories at home.
She bequeathed me a love of golf at an early age. Along with my grandfather, they played snowbird in their retirement years, migrating between Cape Cod and South Florida. I forged my swing bi-annually: in the summers beneath and betwixt the sandy pines of the Cape, and, in the winters, palms replaced pines in various locations around Miami and Boca. An interest in the piano took far longer to inherit, but it too began, I realize now, in those same days.
One of my fondest childhood memories is searching for golf balls with my grandfather in the woods of Cape Cod. In Florida, where the tree line was thin, one didn’t have the opportunity to ball hawk, but in 1980s Cape Cod, before the housing boom, there was plenty of thick forest — beneath those same sandy pines — in which the errant shots of golfers were to be reclaimed.
My grandparents lived on the sixth hole of the New Seabury club’s inland course, and in the evenings, when the course was in repose, my grandfather and I would steal into the dusk to gather the lost hopes and shattered dreams of the high handicapper.
As we’d come and go like nocturnal hunters from a den, notes from my grandmother’s piano would sweep up and down the sixth hole, which was a miracle of acoustics. The tee was raised, shooting down to a valley and then up again towards the green, a 350-yard ‘V.’ The home was situated just past the nadir of the hole, and musical notes flowed easily in both directions.
The mosquitos were alive and evening breezes rustled the forest, but rising above it all and onto the cooling grass of the rough, fairways, and greens, the music had little trouble heralding our departures — pockets empty — and beckoning us home, our pants and belt loops now sagging with foundlings.
For a very long time, my interest lay more in golf than piano. The irony was, for as long as I could remember, we had a piano in our home. Yet neither I nor anyone else in my family utilized it. My mother explained she kept it there so that when her mother visited it would be available for play, but for most of its existence the instrument — solemn, majestic and silent — gathered dust.
When I came to have a home of my own in 2010, my mother asked if I’d like the piano. I accepted, thinking it looked nice and that one day my children might learn. My two sons did not show much interest in it, and the piano continued to lie dormant until the winter of 2017-18, when I decided I needed a hobby once the golf courses closed. What would be a better choice than playing piano?
The presence of a piano in my life was ubiquitous, whether the notes floated through the Cape woods to charm me, or the instrument’s physical presence was an arm’s length away. The opportunity had been there; the songs had been played. But it took a long time to realize that piano and golf, for me, would be intertwined — a creeping destiny if you will.
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Some people learn the piano to gain professional proficiency and to launch a career in music. Others love the challenge of setting a goal and achieving it, whether it be running a marathon or speaking a foreign language. A few think a complete life cannot be lived without competently playing an instrument. For me, there was one reason above all else (even more than having a pass time) to learn the piano: I wanted to play “The Masters.”
In truth, there is no song called “The Masters”; its real name is “Augusta,” composed by Dave Loggins (cousin to Kenny Loggins), and it’s a tribute to Augusta National Golf Course in Augusta, Georgia, where, since 1934, one of the premier golf tournaments in the world is played every April. This tournament is known as The Masters, and its theme song, which debuted in 1982, is most often heard on television before commercial breaks. It is instantly recognizable to golfers the world over. The TV version has a guitar accompaniment which can often overshadow the piano, but when one hears it played solely on the ivories it remains singular.
The moment I decided to take up the piano, I knew instantly which song I wanted to ‘master’ first. I promptly signed up for lessons, telling the instructor which song I wanted to play. He asked how much time I could devote to practice. Factoring in a job and young children, I ventured a guess of about 10 minutes per day. Though he did not say anything, his expression was similar to one I might offer a beginning golfer who asks, “How long will it be before I break 80?” Nevertheless, I began my lessons, and, with only a few exceptions, have been going once per week since I commenced instruction.
A new piano student can learn one or two things in a half hour piano lesson, but practice, like most anything else is imperative, and though I have been faithful to my pledge of 10 minutes each day, I understood early on why my piano teacher had his doubts about me playing “Augusta” any time soon. I foolishly thought when I began lessons in December of 2017, I might be able to play the song by early April 2018.
To see what I faced, I printed the sheet music for “Augusta” just a few weeks after my first lesson. To the eye of a seasoned piano player, “Augusta” is probably not a difficult song to learn, but to the novice piano player, The Masters theme is a dizzying array of flats and sharps, keys I don’t know how to play, and finger positions that beguile.
To play “Augusta” — or any advanced song — one has to keep both hands moving at the same time, frequently going in opposite directions or moving elsewhere on the keyboard while one hand continues steadily. Only by the first or second month of my lessons was I able to play simple tunes such as “Yankee Doodle” or “Row, Row Your Boat.” By month three and four, I was playing a passable “Happy Birthday” and “When the Saints Come Marching In.” I was glad for this progress, but these songs are nothing like “Augusta,” which requires a variety of skills I realized might take much longer to acquire.
April 2018 quickly became April 2019, but even that estimate might have been a stretch.
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As with golf, playing the piano requires perfectly timed coordination to strike the right shot or, as it were, note. Piano instruction to the beginner can be highly confusing in the same manner golf lessons are to the neophyte. A new golfer might be told to hold his or her head still, bend the knees (but not too much), keep the left arm straight, don’t forget to swivel the hips, and finish with 90 percent of your weight on your front foot. And this is only a full swing. There are the dynamics and mechanics of putting, chipping, sand trap play, downhill and uphill lies, trying to move the ball right or left, and a number of other particulars a player must master to be competitive in the game.
As a long-time golfer, many of the fundamentals of the game are second nature to me, but with the piano I am the beginner, staring at a 420-yard par four with water on the right and woods on the left. I feel the psychic pain so many describe about golf, only now it is the piano and all its difficulty that tests my mental limits.
A sheet of piano music has more marks and information than any golf scorecard will ever have. Making your notes flow through a ‘slur’ or striking any given key more crisply when ‘staccato’ is called for are easy in isolation, but to execute these directions in the midst of a piece that also includes a number of other directions and cues is a challenge of the highest order.
Yet I persist because I believe that playing “The Masters” theme will be my only chance to play The Masters.
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As of this writing, I am 45 years old, and a decent golfer with an eight handicap. Given work and family demands, I don’t think I’ll be getting much better at the game. But even if I somehow managed to lower my handicap I’ll never compete in any big-time tournaments. It seems silly to state the obvious, but I’ll never come close to playing at Augusta National Golf Club in The Masters tournament itself, and barring the oddity of an invite to play Augusta by a member, the only way I’ll even get to see the course is by lottery.
What do I mean by this? For many golf events, one simply needs to buy a ticket to attend. Not so for The Masters, which issues coveted tournament tickets via lottery. Every year, I apply online, and, so far, every year, I have not been selected. But odds are I will one day get in via the lottery and thus be able to attend The Masters.
But let’s take this a step farther: attending the tournament and playing the course are two different things. A spectator views the course and all its intricacies from outside the ropes. A gallery member will never know what it feels like to cross the stony bridge over Rae’s Creek at the 12th hole. A spectator can see and smell the azalea and dogwood that famously grace the course, but what would it be like to stand right next to it, and — pray it does not happen — have to hunt around in it should a poor shot find its cover? What would it be like to stroll up the 18th fairway, the gallery staring back at you and the course challenging you to find the elevated green with a suitably spun ball that remains on the good side of the slope? A visitor could never perceive these sites and sensations. Only a player can.
And here is where a leap of faith or perhaps, better put, a flight of fancy, takes hold. If, one day, I can achieve a competent rendition of “Augusta,” it will be as if I am playing the course itself. Making that jump in transposition on the keyboard will be like playing Amen Corner (the nickname of holes 11, 12, and 13) without a bogey or much worse. Hitting the sharps and flats correctly — while not breaking tempo — will be akin to landing in the pine straw… and escaping with a low screamer to put myself in position for a try at an up and down par save. Just being able to get through the four-page piece without a flub will be like playing Augusta and breaking 100.
And dare I go further by saying that learning The Masters theme song will be a feat greater than actually playing the course, and playing it at par or better? Do I risk offending golf purists by declaring that if I play “Augusta” with competency I will transcend what any player has ever done? Even the greatest. Nicklaus. Palmer. Woods. Spieth. They’ve all won marvelous Masters’ victories, but have any of them made music? Have any of them played The Masters?
How can I make such a claim? The answer: music is alchemy, sublime if you will, and golf profane. This is not to say golf isn’t a special game for me. Of course, it is, but golf — or sport in general — as beautiful and entertaining (and frustrating) as it can be, is not the same as music.
One can play the game of golf with mastery and do things no one else can, which inspires awe, but, golf, even when played at the loftiest levels, does not create anything of a higher order. Two inert chemicals, if combined, evolve into something new — whether good or bad. Shine light through water and you get the prismatic magic of a rainbow. One musical note on its own is almost formless, but arrange several in a certain way and you transcend. As much as I love golf, I recognize there is no such analogy available that would make it more than the game it is.
But the composer or the performer of music takes individual sounds and fuses them to stir the ear and brain. Such will be my triumph over the greats of the game if I can play the song. They have mastered the base metal that is the course, but I will have taken pedestrian parts and made gold by mastering the song.
Perhaps I’m getting carried away with my aspirations. After all, we’re talking about playing a popular tune on the piano. Should I be making anything more of this? There might be the personal pride of acquiring a new skill and showing it off, if not for others than just myself, but is it ridiculous to believe learning “Augusta” is anywhere close to stepping into the shoes of the game’s immortals?
Whatever the answer, I keep the sheet music for “Augusta” perched upon my piano as a reminder of my goal, and I often think back to those days on Cape Cod, in the woods. The golf course. The piano. The evening breezes. A song and that creeping destiny closer to being fulfilled.
Randy Steinberg has a master’s degree in film/screenwriting from Boston University. He taught screenwriting at BU from 1999-2010. Since 2011, he has reviewed films, television shows, DVDs, and books for Blast Magazine.com. He is currently developing a feature-film script with a New York City production company. This is his third Sport Literate essay. He lives in the Greater Boston area.