Whack! The clean crisp sound of driver on ball cracks the air. The ball sails true, headed slightly left and in the fairway. My golf buddy, Randy, has squared one up and is in good shape, about 175 yards out with a good line of attack. He smiles and moves towards his golf cart. I am up.

In the time of pandemic, golf is more than sport, it is mental salvation. We are outside in the fresh air, and despite the new restrictions and controls of pandemic golf, we can escape the anxiety of COVID-19 for at least four hours.

Sometimes it's more like five hours as social distanced golf is a slow process. We don't share golf carts anymore. Bathrooms and water stations are closed. Keeping everyone six feet apart has slowed the game down. This is fine with us as golf is a game designed for a slow and deliberate pace. No one is complaining in the age of the COVID-18, holes that is.

I step forward to line up by my ball. I practice a back swing. I do the little dance called the waggle, checking my set-up. Everything is precisely aligned. I curl into the backswing and…the ball dribbles 20 yards into the fairway—somehow, I topped the ball.

"I'll take a reload. I can do better than that." Embarrassed by my duff, I ask for a mulligan.

"No problem, be my guest," says Randy. Our two randomly assigned pandemic partners are waiting but the group is indulgent.

I re-tee the ball and try again. This time, like some miracle from golf heaven, I strike the ball pure in a beautiful rising arc, bouncing down the fairway 190 yards. If I average the two drives, I might achieve a pathetic 105 yards. Such are the vagaries of golf.

It's April 8, 2020, the pandemic is in full force, but a few golf courses are open under strict social distancing guidelines. We are at Randy's favorite course, Whitney Oaks in Rocklin. It's a course known for narrow approaches and enigmatic greens.

We are thankful to be on the course and will endure any inconvenience caused by the rules. We are a little surprised that our assigned golf partners are sharing a cart but assume that they know what they are doing. Maybe they got tested. Maybe they are careful not to breathe in the same direction.

They are a cheerful pair and we find ourselves gingerly stepping back when they approach just a little too close. They have lit up cigars and are letting their plume flow in the wind. I am sure this day is liberating for them. I hope they have read the rules. In normal golf times, a plume of cigar smoke would be fairly benign. Now it can be an engine of death.

Randy strikes a solid approach shot, within a short pitch from the green. I hit a worm burner but then reach the green with a solid 9-iron pitch. For a few hours we will begin to forget about the pandemic and enter our golfing happy space.

Randy and I have a very serendipitous friendship. We have known each other since 1975, about 45 years. We met as young rookie planners, wet behind the ears, working our first professional jobs in Ontario, California. Since that time, we have become disconnected on moves and job changes.

For some odd reason, we have always bumped into each other at a conference or on the street. We can go several years and pick up the friendship from the last interaction. As we have entered our retirement years, we now have time to go deeper with our friendship.

It has been great seeing each other once a week, usually for a round of golf or a hike in the foothills. Before the lock down, Randy and his wife, Julie, joined our theatre group for monthly plays. Our friendship has created a lot of recreational activity. We started calling our time "Mark and Randy's Adventure Club." We either hike, golf, play pool, bike ride, grab a beer, or consult on home improvement projects. The Stay at Home Order has crimped our style but we are determined to keep the adventure club open.

Now we are setting up for Hole 4, a downhill Par 3 with an expansive green guarded by a creek that crosses the entire fairway. If you miss the green, you are sure to be in a briar patch. As I get ready, one of our assigned partners offer an observation: "You know how this corona virus thing started, don't you?"

"Yeah, the meat market, Wuhan. People buying exotic bush meats." I report what I think is common knowledge.

"No, that's not it. It was that rogue scientist. He went nuts. Wanted to punish the world. He let it loose from a Chinese lab." My newly minted virus expert says this with a straight face.

"Rea-a-a-ally. Are you sure? Where did you hear that?" I can't believe what I am hearing.

"I got it from a newsfeed. Saw it on the internet."

"Oh, I see." I turn my back and look at Randy. I am not sure he heard our conversation.

Our new friend and COVID expert hits a great drive. His partner also lands on the green. They head on down the hill. Their game is much stronger than their data base.

I repeat the mad scientist story to Randy. He smiles and recounts another version of the origins of the pandemic. "I was in Trader Joe's the other day. I know a guy from my neighborhood that works there. As he bagged my groceries, he told me how COVID is emanating from the new 5G cell towers. He was totally serious." Randy rolls his eyes. "You hear some crazy stuff these days."

Randy takes a scientific point of view on most things. He's a logical thinker. We take our shots and board our separate, socially distanced, golf carts. We will adhere to the rules. We have our hand sanitizer, in fact Randy has created a home brew of it. We will just have to give extra space to our cigar smoking, cart sharing partners.

We group up near the edge of the green. Randy is on the fringe. I am almost in the creek, in the tall grass. The guy who told the mad scientist story comes over to help me find my ball. I start to reach for my mask. Before I can get it on, he is right next to me, poking the grass with his club.

"Let me help, I can always find a stray ball. I have a sixth sense for it." He is now right next to me and I smile but try to move away.

"No problem, I think I can find it." He is really getting close. I am bent over pulling the weeds away.

"There it is," he says. As he locates it, he exhales a huge plume of smoke directly into my face.

"I got it. Thanks. No problem." I grab it and nearly run to make a drop on the shorter grass.

Throughout this encounter, my cigar smoking viral expert has no clue he has broken at least three social distancing protocols.

But this is how the pandemic seems to go. It's like people look at the pandemic through very different sets of lenses. Some of us take it all very seriously, doing our best to comply. Others think its all over-blown, an overreaction, a fearful foolishness.

Who knows, the truth is probably somewhere in between. Simple things take on complex nuances. A mask becomes a political symbol, a mark of party affiliation. Americans are an ornery breed. We don't take well to government orders. The experts tell us that social distancing is our only weapon, our only tool against an undetectable threat.

The Pandemic Golf Rules try to bridge these two disparate points of view. If you follow a few simple rules, you can be outside with a friend, breathe some fresh air even if through a mask, and play the game in a close comparison of normalcy. We need to hold on to some semblance of normal.

The hours pass quickly, even though the new rules slow the game and it takes more time to complete the course. We were normal, even if for only 5 hours in the week.

Thank you, rulers of the links. For a little while we escaped the dreadful news, the grim statistics, and isolation of Pandemicia. Randy and Mark's Adventure Club had its day.

~ Mark Heckey