Or boarding alone, for that matter. Or with 250 nuns, each of them saying a Rosary. I’m not and never will be a carefree flier, but when duty calls I’ll grit my teeth, inhale a Xanax and step up to the plate. David Feherty had asked me to tag along with him inside the ropes at the Bridgestone Invitational, which is held at the legendary Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio. The purpose of the trip was to observe up close the level of divine skill at which professional golf is executed—an experience guaranteed to validate my own futility about the game. According to MapQuest, the driving distance from my home in Florida to the front gates of Firestone was 1,072 miles, too far for a weekend road trip. So, on a Friday afternoon, the second day of the tournament, I courageously headed to the airport and medicated myself as prescribed. The skies in the Midwest were stormy, so the flight was gut-heaving and miserable despite the sedation. I lurched off the plane and beheld downtown Akron, beckoning like Paris in a drizzle; no traveler has ever been so relieved to set foot in the former tire-and-rubber capital of the Western World.
