Golfing at the Los Altos Country Club

I recently golfed at the , in a member-guest tournament as the guest of my yoga sister and great friend Carol Commons, who is so friendly and open-minded she is willing to be seen with a hick like me.

I got myself as cleaned up as I can get. The evening before playing I polished my golf shoes, washed my clubs, and tidied up my fingernails. On the day of the tournament I put on black pants, my white Polo polo shirt (which is no longer very new looking but is still my best golf shirt), and a beige v-neck pullover I got at consignment shop. I topped it off with a brand-new black windbreaker from NASA-Moffett, my home course.

I drove to the club and went into the clubhouse for breakfast. While I was waiting for Carol, I was thinking about our unlikely friendship.

When I met Carol, 21 years ago, I could tell at a glance that we had some opposite attitudes and  different ways of packaging ourselves. She wore makeup and a lot of jewelry. I wore hardly any. She was expensively dressed. I was plain and simple. But she was nice to me that day and has been nice to me ever since. She is just nice.

At the club, Carol arrived and we ate a buffet breakfast and then went out to play golf.

We were playing a scramble; our group started on the 18th tee. My drive carried the pond, just barely. After some reasonable hits, I four‑putted. The greens at LAG&CC are, in my opinion, professional level—big, fast and complexly sloped. You can miss the cup by an inch and take three putts to get back to it.

On the next hole, I connected with the ball and hit it far. As I walked down the fairway, I was amazed by the uniform greenness. On public courses, the fairways are usually 10 different shades of green, plus some brown where the grass has worn thin. At the club, the grass was all the same color.

I was on the par-5 green in four strokes, but was stumped again by the putting. That was pretty much how my game went: doing all right until I got to the green.

Throughout the morning, Carol kept me laughing and enjoying myself. Our politics are different in many ways. I'm a former hippie who was at the Human Be-In in 1967, then taught yoga at Esalen. Back then she was the wife of a doctor serving in the Army. But. Our senses of humor are identical—she cracks me up. I never would have guessed when I met her that we would become such good friends.

It just goes to show you, friendships can come in surprising packages.

About This Column: Each week Pam Walatka will explore sustainable life in Los Altos Hills. Contact Pam at pamwalatka@yahoo.com or see the Pam Portugal Walakta Writings on FaceBook. Pam has written about golf as a meditation: see Gestalt Golf.