The First Annual CMU Golf Tournament

think about your audience and consider what they actually need to hear and how you’re going to communicate that to them. This is a skill I have now used not only in climate conversations but also in my regular conversations with friends and family and even in my academic life as well. If you haven’t already figured it out, I’m using it right now! Everybody knows that only the coolest of people at CMU read the Doxa, but this time, that’s not enough. Share the Doxa with someone who hasn’t read it yet and tell your friends about PSYC-3950, because, not to sound too dramatic here, it just may change your life. Truthfully, this class offers something of value to everyone simply because it explores an issue that intimately affects all of our lives. If you are already aware of our climate crisis, and it concerns you, then I really recommend that you take this course because, as someone who completely understands where you’re coming from, this course has given me so much hope and understanding around the issue. So much so that I now feel more motivated to take action and feel knowledgeable in ways that I and others can do so. Overall, I believe that every student can benefit from taking this course and would have a really fun time in it as well. If you have the opportunity to take this course within the span of your degree, I strongly recommend you take it, and for those of you that aren’t able to take it or just can’t wait until it’s offered again, I’ve listed a couple of our class resources below for you to check out.

The Climate Atlas (www.climateatlas.ca) - A fantastic resource if you want to learn about the different ways climate change is impacting the planet and what we’re doing about it. How to Save a Planet Podcast - A place where anything climate change related is discussed. This is a great resource for answering your questions, calming your anxieties, and learning the truth about climate change and what you can do about it!

When the above comic by the Doxa’s resident cartoonist Kyla Willms was proposed in a committee meeting several weeks ago, someone raised the (presumably) age-old question: What if we actually golfed on the Canadian Mennonite University campus? It was decided that, for this Green Issue of the Doxa, we would put CMU’s spanning green fields to the test and haul out the old clubs. To our great dismay, two days later, the lawns were covered in a blanket of snow. We at the Doxa are not quitters, however, and at 3:15 in the afternoon of Friday, November 25th, a quartet of us trudged out into the snow for a round of golf. Below are two accounts of an icy afternoon of more-or-less successful golf.

by John George

Preface: I think futile is a great word. I may be wrong about that. To me, futility means that no action had happened, and nothing was met with an answer. However, I’d argue that futility hasn’t to do with negativity or to draw away from doing something. In fact, to me it draws me to the informal events that occur without warning and harm. In a philosophy sense, if an atheistic death is it, then life itself is futile but few feel that we should act on the assumption we shouldn’t do anything. And if life is the ultimate opposite of existing, then life is an extreme. We have an extreme of pain and happiness and it’s futile, yet we move anyway and worry. So let’s play golf. Maybe I’m wrong. That’s existential and the clock is saying its 3:27 AM. Anyways; Listen. Mike messaged me saying he had a couple of clubs and no golf balls. I answered him telling him that a cue ball might work. He said he was at south reception, so I went above Grant to see cars below me. I opened the door to Student Life and saw a nine-iron peek around the corner with a stoic-looking Mike looking down onto the head of the club. When he saw me, his look went to excited, and I was too.

He showed me an orange rubber basketball squish toy that could fit into the jaws of a small dog. My fears of windows and property damage went away when I saw the ball deflate in Mike’s hands.

We went outside. Our green was the snow, with the actual green grass poking up around the bases of trees and buildings. The sun made it spring weather if it wasn’t for the promise of a cold winter. Mike said Kyla was interested and called her. As he did, I saw Kayden in the distance wearing a nice warm leather bomber with silver mirror aviators. He waved at me, and I pointed at him and he came over. “Wanna golf?” He held a guitar case in his right hand and considered staying before saying he had to meet some folk. However, the energy that any summer sport in three inches of snow has made him want to stay. He had to abandon it, and hell, this is a school, we have papers and exam preparation to stress us to our core.

Kayden took the first shot, as it might be his only one. He swung the club with a swift, heavy, precise swing, hinting at some past with the sport. The ball flew with a curve harshly to the right. “A bit of a split,” he smiled.

He wrote for the Doxa [Editor’s Note: this is a reference to Kayden Brown’s article “We Are All Blazers” in the Spring 2022 Issue of the Doxa]. I meant to tell him about an old hippie belief that if you wrote a wish on a zigzag, rolled a good offering, and lit up, cosmic forces would find the wish in all the smoke, but I forgot. I was too focused on the game at hand. He left for his meeting.

Kyla came from Poettcker, laughing when she saw Mike and I with irons over our shoulders. We laughed ourselves before she rested the third iron over her shoulder.

She asked where the first tee was, and we pointed to the orange ball that split towards residence. My Chucks were going anyway, so I went into the snow with my ankle socks playing chicken with the snow. Mike swung and showed a similar stance and knowledge of the sport as well, with a pristine practice swing chipping a hunk of soft snow a couple of paces away. Kayden came back after a couple minutes and said he could stay for a swing or two. He then stayed until we were finished. Kayden hopped atop the picnic table with knees angled like a professional golfer and an energy in his shoulders of a madman. He had a pile of ice blocks from the scrapped sidewalks, with a fast swing. “Should we aim for the over at the MAG?” Mike thought a moment and said, “I think we should aim for Charlie’s house.” I heard Kayden’s swings and saw the ice fly behind Mike. “Where’s Charlie’s house?” Whack.

“By that tree and that orange stuff.” Whack. “You know of any holes there?” Whack.

by Mike Thiessen

Admittedly, I was absent from the meeting in which this brilliant idea was pitched. I was studying for a quiz, if you must know. It proved to be one of my less successful quizzes, so perhaps I should’ve just gone to the meeting. Anyway. I digress. When my co-editor Katie Wilson informed me of the proceedings of the meeting, I was delighted to hear the golf proposal. I could picture the article instantly, and was thrilled to get a start on our golf journey.

We experienced a number of setbacks in this golfing endeavour. Firstly, the snow – this was not a big deal, as the idea of golfing in the snow proved funnier than normal golfing. Crisis averted. Secondly, there were several profs who had the audacity to assign papers around the time that we’d planned to play golf. After rescheduling, there were a number of other hurdles over which we had to leap. We were able to acquire three clubs, but I had not accounted for the fact that golf balls do not automatically come with the clubs. In a text conversation with John in the minutes before we were supposed to meet, he suggested we use a pool cue ball. I’ve never hit a cue ball with anything other than a pool cue, so I don’t know for sure what the result would be, but this idea conjured up images of pieces of white porcelain flying everywhere and a ball that would be thereafter unusable. Thankfully, I happened to run into Mackenzie Nicolle, who donated a tiny, slightly deflated basketball to our cause.

Several things became immediately evident. Firstly, we were on the ill-equipped side for winter golf. (Whether it’s ever possible to be properly equipped for winter golf is debatable.) Kayden and I were wearing Blundstones and Docs, respectively, but John and Kyla were both wearing only sneakers. The sun was out and the temperature was relatively high, but the frigid winter breeze bit at our cheeks and ungloved hands. Secondly, as a collective, we were not very experienced in the sport. “How many of you have been golfing before?” I asked, about a third of the way through our round. Kyla had been to a driving range but had never played golf. John was a seasoned mini-golfer but had also never played. I had gone mini-golfing here and there, and played two rounds when I was in grade eight as part of gym class. It was only Kayden who knew a thing or two about golf, having gone several times a summer for a number of years past. Winter golfing, however, proved to be the great equalizer – a small inflatable rubber ball does not travel very far when you hit it, as well as a mound of snow, with a 6-iron. We pressed on, all more or less on the same playing field. After some deliberation, we decided to aim for Charlie Peronto’s house. A decent golfer could probably (I’m assuming) hit a ball from the doors at South to Charlie’s house in one shot. If my memory serves me correctly, it took us about forty minutes. It was really quite a rare occurrence for any of us to hit the little orange ball on the first try, and most of the time, when we finally hit it, it rolled or hopped somewhere between one and ten feet. Suffice to say, our little golf team will probably not be invited to the PGA Tour next year.