So the town is looking to purchase the golf course. Word on the street is that the course is currently less “meticulously manicured” and more “authentically rugged.” We are about to own a massive and sprawling monument to mankind’s most bafflingly popular form of self-torture, a place already halfway back to nature.

Golf, as Mark Twain said, is a good walk spoiled. It is a game built on absurdity, played out between the hum of the state highway and a ridge of trees that serves as a graveyard for misdirected golf balls. You begin by hitting a ball as far as humanly possible and then spend the next ten minutes looking for it so you can hit it again. The ultimate goal is to play as little golf as you possibly can, because unlike every other sport, lower scores win.

It’s a game of quiet frustration, outfits you wouldn’t wear in normal sports, and the existential dread of watching a $4 sphere of plastic hook out of existence into that aforementioned ridge of trees.

And how does one traverse this landscape of frustration? In a golf cart, the saddest vehicle known to man. It’s a startled toaster on wheels, quietly edging its way down the course like someone trying to tiptoe past a sleeping baby. It only exists to spare you from the horrors of a gentle stroll, all while carrying the emotional baggage of being the world’s most over-engineered lawn chair. It doesn’t roar, it sighs, dutifully carrying its occupants from one bad decision to the next.

The language is a secret code designed to confuse outsiders. You have your “birdies,” “eagles,” and “albatrosses,” making it sound more like an ornithology field trip than a sport. You have your “bogeys,” “shanks,” and the dreaded “yips,” a condition where your own nervous system betrays you, turning a simple putt into a public display of twitching. Golfers willingly subject themselves to this, and then proceed to talk to their ball like a misbehaving dog. “Sit! Stay! Or Go!” All for the fleeting glory of one perfect shot that makes them forget the 87 terrible ones that came before it.

And now, we have this fantastic opportunity to put this theater of the absurd into the hands of the public.

But here’s the brilliant part. The course’s rough condition isn’t a complete drawback. Within this vast, wildish expanse lies the seed of something spectacular. Think beyond just golf. Think of those rolling hills, blanketed in winter snow, echoing with the laughter of families on sleds. The terrain is already begging to become a network of trails for hikers, runners and bikers. This is a chance to create a legacy. A park truly for everyone, making it the smartest investment we can make.

Ruth Wiseman is a Woodland Park native and a dual-enrolled high school student attending Pikes Peak State College.