I’ve made some terrible golf shots in the past five years.
I’ve hit a duck. I’ve somehow turned my ball 90 degrees and landed it in a drainpipe. I hit my tee shot onto an adjacent green while guys were in the midst of putting. I literally hit the broadside of a barn once.
Last year I hit myself with my own shot.
Even with my litany of embarrassing golf shots, I’ve never hit a golf ball into a restroom, as this pro did while on the European tour.
Sunday, however, was a good day. For just the second time in my life, I beat one of my three main rivals on the golf course by one shot, employing advice received on this blog in order to extract myself from a bunker on the penultimate hole in order to secure my victory.
I even made an inadvisable, near impossible shot from the edge of a pond, through a patch of tall grass, and onto the opposite bank in order to avoid taking a penalty.
For a few moments yesterday, I felt like a real golfer.
I’ve started taking notes on the rounds of golf that I play this year with an eye to a possible, albeit slender memoir. Something along the lines of Carl Hiaasen’s THE DOWNHILL LIE: A HACKERS RETURN TO A RUINOUS SPORT.
I liked the book a lot, but Hiaasen wasn’t a hacker. He wasn’t PGA material, but he was a solid golfer before and after his return to the game.
I am a bad golfer. Legitimately poor.
The initial vision for my book would an account of my six month quest to defeat one of my three main rivals on the golf course before the end of the golfing season.
But my plan was foiled yesterday when my victory came on the second round that I played this year.
I’m not complaining, even though it disturbs my planned narrative flow a bit. A victory is always a good thing. An at least I’ve beaten this particular rival once before. It was a great day for me, but not my ultimate golfing moment.
For that to happen, I would have to beat Tom, the unfairly named nemesis and villain of the book.
Tom is my the white whale. He remains at sea, waiting for my harpoon.
