Christmas was good. I got GOLF SHOES. Real ones, white with green on the toes and soft spikes so they don't rip up the greens. I wore them around the house on Christmas morning until Mom said I sounded like a horse on the kitchen floor.

Grandma came for dinner and I asked her about the clubs. I never asked before. She bought them in 1962 with money from her job at the phone company. She played at a club where the women weren't allowed to tee off on Saturday mornings. Saturday morning was for the men. The women could play after noon, or on Tuesdays, so she played on Tuesdays with a league of other ladies, and she said they were better than half the men anyway and everybody knew it.

I said "Didn't that make you mad?"

She said "Oh, honey. Every Saturday for twelve years."

Then she said she stopped playing when her knees got bad, and the clubs sat in Grandpa's basement for twenty years, and she's glad somebody's swinging them again. She said "Go hit it past those boys." I said I already do sometimes. She said "Then do it more."

I didn't know she was mad about it too. I thought it was just me.

It snowed. Golf is over until March probably.

BUT Dad hung a net from the rafters in the garage, a big one like a fishing net, and put down a square of carpet, and now I can hit balls into it. You can't see where they go, you just hear the net go WHUMP. Dad says that's good, because then I have to feel the shot instead of watching it. I hit 50 balls after school in my coat and gloves. The garage smells like gas and cold.

A girl in gym class asked me why I want to play with the boys so bad. She wasn't being mean, she really wanted to know. I didn't know how to say it so I just said "I don't know." Here is the real answer. I don't want to play with the boys. I want to play GOLF. The boys are just there.

I should put that in the comeback box. It isn't a comeback though. It's just true.

49!!!!!!!!!!

I BROKE 50!!! Last JV match of the season. I made par on number 1 and then I was so scared I made a 7 on number 2. But I didn't fall apart. I just made bogeys and doubles like a normal person, and on 9 I had a four foot putt for 49 and Grandma's old putter went "tink" and it went IN.

Eli shot 52 and gave me a high five so hard my hand hurt. Coach Fryar wrote it on his clipboard and said "Good season, Crystal." He has been calling me "young lady" since August. He said my NAME.

Season is over. Final stats: 6 matches, average 53.3 (Dad did the math), best 49, number of times I cried in front of anybody: ZERO. Number of times I cried in the car after: two. That doesn't count.

Shot today: 49 (9 holes)

Somebody put a bag of PINK TEES in my golf bag. Like a hundred of them. There was a note in marker that said "FOR THE LADIES TEES."

I know who did it. Everybody knows who did it. Brett is a senior and he thinks he is so funny. He was standing by the cart barn with his friends waiting for me to find it.

So here is what I did. I didn't say anything (big surprise). I took out one pink tee. I teed it up on number 1 for the JV match, right there in front of everybody, and I hit the best drive I have ever hit in my LIFE. Straight down the middle and it rolled forever. Past where Brett's friend hit his.

Then I put the pink tee back in my pocket.

Brett didn't laugh that time. Nobody laughed. Eli said "Good tee" really quietly and I almost lost it.

I'm using pink tees for the whole rest of the season. I have like 99 left.

Shot today: 53 (but THAT DRIVE)

9-4-97 (Thursday)

First JV match today. I shot 56. I am not going to talk about it.

OK I will talk about it a little. I was so nervous on the first tee that my hands were shaking and I topped it and it went like 40 yards. The boy from the other school went "ooh" like it was a car crash. After that I was fine, sort of. I just couldn't putt. Grandma's putter is too short for me and I have to bend over like I'm looking for a contact lens.

Other news: I GOT A COUNTER!!! It's on the bottom of the page. It took me three nights to figure it out. So far it says 14 and I think 13 of them are me. If you're number 14, hi. Who are you?? You can e-mail me. I won't write back if you're on the team.

Shot today: 56 :(

First week of practice. It's every day after school at the course. The varsity guys get to play and us JV people mostly hit balls on the range and chip and putt and pick up range balls.

Nobody talks to me. That's fine. I didn't come to talk.

Except for one. There's another freshman named Eli. He's skinny and he wears this old faded hat that he says was his dad's, and his clubs don't match because he got them at a garage sale, like a whole set for twenty dollars. He works at the driving range in the summer, the guy who drives the little cart with the cage on it while everybody tries to hit him. He said he hits balls for free after closing. That's how he learned.

Today on the range I hit a good drive and he said "Nice." That's all he said. Then he went back to hitting.

That is the first thing anybody on the team has said to me that wasn't a joke.

I MADE IT!!!!!

Day 2 of tryouts was yesterday and I shot 51, which is three better than Monday. Coach Fryar put the list up on the pro shop door this afternoon. He kept 12. Varsity is the top six and everybody else is JV. I'm number 11.

Number 11 of 12. But I'm ON IT.

Somebody wrote "(girl)" next to my name in pencil. Like maybe Coach forgot. I didn't erase it. Let them look at it.

Dad took me for a milkshake like he promised. He said "You earned that." I said "It's just JV." He said "It's just the beginning," and then he got embarrassed because that sounded like a greeting card, and we both laughed so hard the lady at the counter looked at us.

Also I changed the name of my page. It used to be "Crystal's Golf Journal." Now it's what it is.

Tryouts day 1.

There were 23 boys and me.

When we walked to the first tee, one of the seniors (Brett) said "Ladies' tees are up there, sweetheart," and pointed at the red markers, and everybody laughed. Even some of the freshmen, who were just as scared as me. I could tell.

I didn't say anything. I never say anything. My face got hot and I walked right past him to the white tees and put my ball down. My hands were shaking.

I hit it 170 yards into the right rough. It's not great. It's not bad. It's not the ladies' tees.

I shot 54. Dad picked me up and asked how it went and I said "fine" and looked out the window the whole way home.

What I SHOULD have said: Ladies' tees? No thanks. I thought of it in the shower. That's always when I think of them. So I'm making a box at the top of this page for all the things I should have said. It's going to be a big box.

This is my journal. Nobody I know is going to read it, which is the point.

Tomorrow is golf tryouts. My school doesn't have a girls' golf team. It has girls' tennis and girls' volleyball and girls' basketball and girls' everything else, but not golf, because not enough girls ever wanted to. So I'm trying out for the boys' team. Coach Fryar said that's allowed. He said it like he was reading it off a paper.

I have played since I was nine. Dad taught me at the muni on Sunday nights after five, when it's cheap. I'm not good. I'm OK. I can break 55 for nine holes most of the time.

I'm using Grandma's clubs. They're from 1962!!! The woods are real wood (persimmon) with little brass plates on the bottom, and the bag is red plaid. They're ladies' clubs so they're shorter than they should be for me, but Dad says a club doesn't know who's swinging it.

In April I watched Tiger Woods win the Masters with Dad. He won by TWELVE strokes and he's only 21. At the end he hugged his dad for a really long time, and my dad didn't say anything and went in the kitchen for a while. That's when I decided.

Mom asked if I'm nervous. I said no. It's 11:40 at night. So.