The long winter is finally loosening its grip on the Upper Valley. We rejoice in the coming of another mellifluous season of maple syrup. And let’s not forget the notoriety of our mud season, a harbinger of spring self-renewal.
Out at the Lake Morey Country Club, the greenskeepers are taking the flags out of storage, treading down the frost heaves and unwittingly preparing the stage for my own annual humbling golf season.
I can’t wait.
I play with the Hanover Old Boys, a group of nine with roots at the old Hanover Country Club. Lawyers. Doctors. Educators. Businessmen. The group is a self-governing Yankee democracy, ardently overseen by Jim, a Yale man whom we refer to, with complete affection, as Jim the Grim. Jim keeps order. Jim keeps score. Jim has never, to my knowledge, duffed a tee shot in his life. Some find this deeply suspicious.
Every one of them plays better than I do. I want to be clear, however. I am not a beginner. I have been playing for years. The gap between what I know and what I execute is, however, roughly the width of the Connecticut River even on a good day.
Not long ago, I used to hit the “golfer’s dream” by shooting my age. Last year, I was four strokes off that pace. In most areas of life, a four-shot regression wouldn’t prompt a visit to a therapist. In golf, however, it prompts the purchase of a new club.
Consider hole 12 at the Lake Morey Golf, the most challenging hole on the course that has humbled every Hanover Old Boy at one time or another, though they are far too dignified to say so. Few of us make par on 12. The lawyer has tried. The doctor has tried. The businessman has tried. The soccer coach has tried. Jim the Grim has tried, though his expression never changes, so it is difficult to tell. I have tried so many times that I have developed a personal relationship with its craggy elevation. The hole does not judge me — I just look up at the panoramic views of the Echo Mountain.
After the round, we repair to the clubhouse. This is, if I’m honest, the best part. The bonhomie that follows 18 holes of shared joy is a particular Upper Valley pleasure: drinks, silly jokes and warm argument, the replaying of shots that were better in memory than in fact.
In the off-season, November through mid-April, when the course sleeps under the Upper Valley winter, the group does not hibernate. They become a think tank, spending the winter in robust debate about global affairs and the American condition, pivoting from Russia-Ukraine, the Middle East, MAGA polarization to Silicon Valley tech billionaires.
Which brings me, in my golf desperation, to AI.
Dartmouth President Sian Beilock recently wrote about how AI is transforming education, how we learn, how knowledge travels and how human potential gets unlocked. Which has prompted one urgent question: Can AI fix my short game?
I read “Choke” by Beilock, what to do when you crack under pressure. I have tried all. Equipment. Positive thinking. Swing thoughts. Pre-shot routines. I am not too embarrassed, at this stage of my golfing life, to try AI. It beats Gary Kasparov at chess. It passed the bar exam. It writes poetry and diagnoses illness and is, I am told, very good at short game simulation.
Surely AI can get a duffer like me to shoot below my age.
I consulted a leading AI system. I described my game with full transparency — the four-shot regression in one year, the 12-hole challenge, the supremacy of the Hanover Old Boys. I asked for help. It responded with some sensible tips about tempo, weight transfer and the importance of keeping my head still. Don’t choke. I had heard all this before.
But I am not giving up on technology. I have been reading about a self-driving golf cart that navigates the course autonomously, tracks the shot data and offers real-time club recommendations. In other words, my own AI caddy can watch every swing and analyze every disaster on every hole with the cool detachment of a humanoid that cannot feel embarrassment on my behalf.
Imagine its calm, pleasant voice: “Based on your last 97 attempts at this hole, I recommend laying up.” I imagine myself ignoring it completely and going for the green anyway. Some things AI cannot fix. The stubbornness of a hopeful duffer is one of them.
But here is what keeps me coming back every April. The score isn’t really the point. The point is 18 holes with the group — the lawyer, the coach, the doctor, the businessman, Jim the Grim in his element, all of them insufferably competent and entirely good company. The scorecard is just the Joker: there will be another day.
The flags are back in the cups at the club. It has a new director, Chris Daly, a most accomplished golf professional.
The Hanover Old Boys are warming up. Jim the Grim will be the first to be there, with expression jolly, game immaculate. I have, somewhere on the horizon, an AI caddy who will tell me which club to choose and where to lay up.
This year: I’ll hit the score below my age. AI said so. Stop laughing.
Narain Batra is a study leader at the Osher Institute at Dartmouth College. He lives in the Upper Valley.