Portland, your new favorite sport: Urban golf

The neighbors have been giving me some weird looks the past few weeks.

Perhaps those scantily-clad (and apparently not-so-clandestine) missions to take the garbage and recycling out to the curb in my skivvies are catching up to me.

Maybe it’s my preference for well-done when I barbecue (the fire department has finally stopped responding).

But mostly I think they’re jealous. I don’t think they realized that asphalt in front of their houses was such a kick-ass fairway.

You see, we’re ignoring the stares from Mr. Larson and the rest of them, and turning our neighborhood -- the sunny hilltop section of Southeast known affectionately as Misdemeanor Meadows -- into a wild outlaw golf course, complete with a loosey-goosey set of malleable rules, hazards galore and a 19th hole that’s always just a few blocks away.

One thing I know, this urban golf thing is not as anarchic as those people peeking through their curtains think it is.

Of course we aren’t playing with real golf balls. Look, all my neighbors’ windshields are just fine as they are.  But the tennis balls we do use add a bit of a challenge. They feel weird to hit, they’re unpredictable in the air and Portland’s lovable population of dogs is curiously drawn to them. But really, wow, the feeling of a well hit Penn, dead-center down the middle of the street, is as satisfying as any blast off a tee box at the local muni. And it’s free. And you make the rules.

We play a certain course that’s always changing; last time out it was up the street, off the school, through the ballfield, into the playground structure, over to the dumpsters, off the steps, down the parking lot, down the street, against the backstop, under the benches, off the manhole cover, down another street, into the yard, beer, repeat as necessary.

When it comes to the real thing, out on a real golf course, paying real money, I’m awful. I’ve hurt people. When I warm up, I look like a long-forgotten farm implement, swinging rusty and broken in the wind. But I still get a charge when I surprise myself and do something good.

And wouldn’t you know it! I get that same buzz in the middle of the street, in flip-flops, three beers deep, when I whack the crap out of that fuzzy yellow ball and watch it not only miss the brand-new Pathfinder down the street (mere inches), but then get a charity bounce off the curb, a skip off a yellow recycling bin and roll all the way to the sewer grate. Hole 12? I’ll put myself down for a birdie.

My only advice: Don’t run outside right now and ruin the antique set of burl woods you inherited from Great Uncle Jim. You can find all the street-savvy irons and big Goofy woods you need at your nearby Goodwill, no problem. That’s what I did and I wound up with a 7-iron that’s sweet as Cap’n Crunch.

But just like the Cap’n’s creation, my little beat-up 7-iron packs an evil secret... it also slices. For that and everything else, I sincerely apologize... especially to Mr. Larson’s rhododendrons.