An Odd Day Golfing
Caleb Dillon and I played golf today.
It sounds normal enough just saying it like that but believe me, this day was peculiar… very peculiar.
It started off well as we were able to get reduced-priced tee times from an online source which made me extremely happy as we were able get in for less than half the normal fees. This reduced price included both a cart AND a bucket of range balls… not too shabby by anyone’s standards. I did have some trepidation over bringing only a printed confirmation sheet into a pro shop that I had not even called to confirm my reservation but my fears were soon relieved when the young man behind the counter eagerly snatched the sheet, tucked it under the desk, handed me a bucket of balls and told me I was ready to go.
My head swirling, I made my way to the range and hit a few balls while waiting for Caleb to show. I swatted my share and then lounged around the cart biding my time until suddenly, like a bolt of lightning on a clear day, I heard a shout and there was Caleb, bag on shoulder, ready for battle.
He quickly loaded his clubs on the cart and proceeded to the mat to get in some swings before our rapidly approaching tee time. I also grabbed a few clubs and hurried down the range to some abandoned range balls I had been eyeing. I had hit several when behind me I heard a very loud swish, a grunt and a muffled scream. I turned and saw Caleb holding his neck with both a puzzled and pained expression on his face and seeing me looking, he said, “I… I think I just hurt myself.”
I laughed uproariously at his little joke but sobered quickly when I found that he was serious. Apparently he had taken an aggressive swing, missed the ball completely and given himself severe whiplash. He was hurt badly enough to make him think he might have to visit the urgent care but being the strong, determined man that he is, he decided to push on and attempt to play anyway.
We approached the first tee, waited while a bearded goon and a toothy-grinned goof teed off and then followed suite. We smote smartly and away we went.
The first hole was uneventful but the second was a beauty, well… before the putting anyway. All modesty being set aside momentarily allow me to say that while I performed passably on the drive my second shot, a 150 yard 7-iron shot from the fairway was nearly miraculous. It landed mere yards in front of the green, gave a pretty little bounce and rolled neatly up past the fringe. I WAS ON IN TWO!
I plan on eventually writing a book called “From Birdie to Bogie” and wrote the first chapter on that hole. I beautifully 3-putted, grimaced, and moved on.
My irons were in rare form and almost weren’t terrible. In fact, I hit the fourth green (a 3-par) on my first shot which I believe I had only done once before and it could have easily be blamed on the wind then. My driving, however, was fair at best and was only exciting and worthy of note when I connected well and true on hole five and only divine providence saved the lives of the goon and goof in front of me. My ball landed just behind them and rolled past their quivering and no doubt, livid forms amongst the strangled cries of “OH NO!” and “FORE” which rang out from both mine and Caleb’s throats.
The seventh hole was my crowning glory. In fact, it is perhaps the only thing I did worth crowing about. On this hole, a longish 5-par, my drive was quite nice landing nicely out into the fairway but my second shot, if I may be so bold, was fabulous. I flailed mightily and connected squarely. My ball flew straight and true and ended up about FIVE FEET FROM THE GREEN!
I chipped within six feet of the flag and nailed my first putt FOR A BIRDIE! Yes, a birdie. Unbelievable.
I finished the front nine with a (for me) sparkling 46! My hopes were high. Could I possible replicate that performance on the back nine and post a 92? Doubtful.
We hurried to the tenth tee and found to our consternation that the twosome in front of us were just now making their way onto the tee box. Apparently they had stopped for refreshment which put us uncomfortably on their heels.
While we were waiting, a cart pulled up behind ours but oddly enough it did not contain any of the group behind us, rather it held two unassuming young men named Garret and John who had apparently either skipped holes to be there or were just playing the back nine. We gave casual greetings and were about to tee off when they uttered those oh-so-chilling words… “Do you mind if we join you?”
Now if you have golfed for any length of time you have probably grown to hate these words. They are terrifying, fear-inducing words. “Why?” the uninitiated might ask. Allow me to clue you in.
It is VERY rare to have someone join your group at random who plays at the same skill level as yourself. They are typically either MUCH better than you or MUCH worse than you (in my case, this latter possibility rarely presents itself). Either way it throws you off your game, it makes you press, it makes you a wreck. It did all of these things to us.
It would have been bad enough had the people joining us been normal, but contrary to our initial impression they were FAR from normal. I soon dubbed Garret, “Garret the Foul” as the adjective so perfectly suited both his golfing and his limited vocabulary. The first time he teed off, he hit the ball sideways, a screaming shot that nearly cut the feet out from under me despite that fact that I was nowhere near the target area… I was almost behind him. The ball ended up in the parking lot.
He smote twice more, nothing differing from his initial effort save my location, which was now safely behind a large tree. He finally was instructed by John who had to yell to break through Garret's unbroken stream of profanity, to just pick up his ball and drop it next to his own. Garret agree albeit grudgingly.
In the first two holes that we played with him, Garret the Foul lost seven balls, cursing the while and constantly remonstrating that he never normally played badly and typically birdies every other hole. (The last part he didn’t actually say but was very clearly implied.)
John’s peculiarity did not make itself known until the following hole. The occasion was his topping a ball, something which might cause a typical golfer to grit his teeth in frustration or even emit a slight grunt of disapproval… not so John. From his inner being emitted a growl which turned into a yell and then a scream. He raised his club high above his head while howling and then hurled the same skyward. This demonstration caused Caleb and myself to raise an eyebrow.
The next hole was even more dramatic after John attempted to chip over a sand trap and landed squarely in it. This caused great emotion in John. He repeatedly beat the offending sand with his pitching wedge while attempting to mimic the familiar refrains of Garret, namely the four-letter ones. This prompted Caleb to name him “John the Criminally Insane”.
Later on, having missed a putt, he hurled the ball which had treated him so duplicitously into the unknown while he screamed “I NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU AGAIN!”.
Needless to say, our games faltered. It is difficult to concentrate on one’s swing when in the background there are sounds of trees being smitten by 3-woods or an endless stream of epithets ever-increasing in volume and violence.
By the fifteenth hole Caleb could take no more. Between his twisted neck and the troubled twosome he elected that discretion was indeed the better part of valor. I took him to his car and upon returning to the course did NOT attempt to rejoin my group. Instead, I elected to replay the fifteenth hole and continue thereafter solo.
I quickly bogied and sat a discreet distance behind the guys on sixteen that were teeing off. These two fellows happened to be the ones who we formerly behind us when we were with the terrible two. From a distance I had watched them and had been greatly impressed by their abilities. Every time I looked at a green behind me it had a ball on it. They seldom missed, were always hitting the ball incredible distances off the tee and seemed to spend the majority of their time waiting for us to get out of their way. It was unnerving.
While I sat waiting, they waved at me and casually asked if I would like to play with them. I replied with a definite no, assuring them that I had witnessed their play and was nowhere near their class. Undeterred they unthinkingly waived off my refusal and said, “We’re just waiting on these bozos ahead of us like we have been all day. You won’t slow us down any.” Little did they know that they were about to play with one of the bozos they had been so frustrated with earlier in the day. The group in front of them was Garret and John who had just partnered up with a new set of victims… the bearded goon and the toothy-grinned goof referred to at the beginning of this narrative.
With much anxiety I approached their tee, war club in hand. My anxiety increased ten-fold as I glanced at the color of the tee. They were playing from the intimidating BLUE tees and were STILL hitting much farther into the fairway than I ever had from white. Having seen both of them hit their shots approaching three-hundred yards I knew that even my best efforts would look silly. I, however, gave them a glimpse of my worst.
My knees knocking, I slowly drew back and struck the ball very, very hard… straight into the trunk of a tree standing far to the left and a mere 30 feet away. The only thing that preserved the life of the gentlemen I was with was the absorbency of the tree’s bark. The sound created could almost be felt as well as heard.
To add insult to injury, and this is NOT foolish jesting, the ball bounced back toward us along the cart path and gracefully landed in a nearby trash can. This really did happen. A trash can. It didn’t help when I heard behind me (because I refused to look around at their no-doubt grinning faces) a dry voice say, “perfect shot… made it right in.” Dave, the more rotund of the two, then plucked out the offending sphere and tossed it back to me.
My next shot wasn’t much better as by then I was a complete frazzled mess scarcely able to stay erect let alone execute a perfect swing.
Dave and Bill (Bill was the more sarcastic, taller of the two) were mere dots on the horizon standing where their balls had landed as I looked toward the green. It took me two more shots before I reached them.
It was on the eighteenth hole that I realized that Bill was a jerk. Until then he had treated me well, much like a father treats a retarded son and even on this hole he was polite… to me. It was to the people behind him who were of another race than he that he spoke of in rather impolite terminology. Speaking rather braggadociously, he kept remarking that there was no way they could possibly reach him as he had hit it so tremendously long… unfortunately, there was no contradicting him as he was correct in his assessment.
I watched this man hit the fringe of the eighteenth green in two shots, 520 yards from the blue tees. Utterly astonished, I heard him remark to his partner that if he could just par this hole he would have an easy sixty-nine. As I was scratching down my own 98, I regarded him with awe but without amusement. The fact that I had played the last three holes from the blue tees didn’t help my ego any.
My one claim to fame while playing with these monsters was the fact that on the last hole I actually out-drove Dave and was within 10 yards of Bill’s. And if you will, please humor me while I do some math. The 18th hole is 524 yards long. The blue stake is 200 yards from the green. So if you were to hit it to the blue stake, assuming that all of the givens are correct then you would have hit the ball 324 yards, right? Well… I actually hit the ball with 10 yards of that blue stake. REALLY! I even took a picture of it to give me credibility (as if the picture actually means something). The rest of the hole was painful and will not be related here.
And thusly ended another fabulous but rather odd day of golf. The whiplash, the violence, the chagrin… all these helped make this day memorable. My love-hate relationship with golf continues. On this outing, I loved the first nine holes and hated the last. Next time, no doubt, it will change. Will I ever prevail? Will I ever be able to mock those behind me secure in the knowledge that whoever they may be their skills could never match mine? Perhaps… but not in the foreseeable future.
Notice the unnatural angle of his neck.
There is a very tiny yellow speck... it is my ball on the green.
My ball... on the green in two on hole 2.
A very natural pose.
This close in two on a par-5. I eventually birdied here.
Garett and John.
John watches angrily.
Bill and Dave.
The stake to which I nearly hit my ball on the eighteenth hole.