My son’s birthday is in September. I finally gave him last year’s present…
I took him golfing!
He had never done it before.
As we got my clubs out of storage and started cleaning up the bag, memories started coursing through my mind. I haven’t played golf in over 15 years!
We arrived about 1 1/2 hours early so I could teach him a little about hitting a golf ball and warm up a little. When we checked in, the lady at the desk said we would be teeing off in 15 minutes!
Forget about hitting a bucket of balls…As far as the lesson…
No problem. We’re men! We can make it work!
On the first hole, I hit a pretty nice shot. I was admiring its flight as it landed near the green. Once it landed, everything changed. It bounced off a hill and headed straight for the lake!
While I was looking for my ball, I heard a strange sound behind me. I didn’t even bother looking up. Big A’s ball had just been sucked into the mud. The comedy had started!
We stopped keeping score after the third hole!
On the fourth hole, I was in the trees on the left and he was in the trees on the right. I told him to hit his ball as soon as he found it so we didn’t delay the people playing behind us.
I found mine first and hit it pretty good only to hear the ball crash into some tree branches. A moment later, I heard his ball crash into tree limbs on the other side of the fairway. We were like Father & Son Deforestation, Inc. at work!
On the sixth hole, Big A scored either a 12 or a 14. (For you non golfers our there, that is really bad. He was supposed to shoot a 4!) And that doesn’t include all the times that he picked the ball up! In fact, he eventually tossed the ball onto the green and, after a few failed putts, dropped the ball into the hole by hand! As he picked the ball up out of the cup, he tipped his hat to an imaginary crowd!
The seventh hole was a par three. That means that you should be able to make it to the green in one shot…if you know what you are doing!
The group playing ahead of us was walking onto the green to finish the hole. Big A asked me if he could hit.
I had just seen this man hit the ball 5 straight times and only advance 20 yards (He said that was his “frog” hit because the ball would hop about 10-15 feet into the air before hopping a few yards). The people on the green were in no danger at all. Now the birds in the trees on the right or the rabbits in the tall grass on the left…that was a different story.
“Sure.”
He swung and my decision was justified. The poor rabbits!
He ran and got his ball, came back, set up again and asked, “Can I go again?”
“Sure. Why not?”
I guess he just needed some human beings to aim at because he hit a beautiful, straight shot right onto the green WHILE THE PEOPLE WERE STILL ON IT! I went from laughing about the rabbits to frantically screaming “Four! Four!” and REALLY hoping that no one got hurt!
Anyway, we played golf the same way we play racquetball, swinging hard and laughing hard the whole time…except I didn’t get hurt this time!
