Still growing the legend…

About a month ago, I wrote this:
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Scott, my golf guru, has said many wise things to me on a golf course. Swing thoughts and strategy and decision making.

He has also advised me to “grow the legend” wherever possible.

This means that when faced with the choice of a safe, high percentage shot or an exceedingly difficult, low percentage, possibly remarkable shot, always choose the latter. Even though your score might suffer, scores are quickly forgotten.

Remarkable shots are remembered forever.

I like this philosophy a lot.

Here’s the problem:

My legend isn’t entirely legendary, at least when it comes to the golf course, and quite possibly throughout much of my life.

In the years I’ve played golf, I’ve killed a bird mid-flight with a tee shot. Hit a duck on the side of a hill. Hit a ball that traveled 130 yards on a 90-degree arc around a stand of tall grass, over a pond, and into a pipe on the other side. I’ve hit the side of a barn. Hit the side of a house. Hit myself with a ball twice on a ricochet off a tree.

I once hit six consecutive shots into a condo complex in Bermuda, each shot landing within several feet of the other. I’ve hit multiple balls into multiple ponds, streams, and rivers many, many times.

I once hit a tee shot that somehow ended up 100 yards to the right, slightly behind me, onto a green where four guys were putting.

“Putting for eagle?” one of them asked with a smile.

I once hit a ball out of a sand trap straight up into the air. I looked up and couldn’t see the ball, so I asked my friend, Andrew, who had been watching the shot, where it had gone. Then the ball came back down, landing on the brim of my hat, resting there for a moment, before gently rolling off my hat and into the divot I’d just made.

Andrew witnessed the entire thing and might still be laughing today.

I’m legendary on the golf course, but not for the reasons a golfer wants to be legendary.
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Last weekend, I punched a ball out from under the trees. Even though I hit the ball less than 50 yards into a relatively open area, none of us could find the ball. We looked and looked and looked, then I said to myself:

“Where is the worst place the ball could be?”

Then I found it.

Of course.

This is my version of “growing the legend.”

I grew the legend. My legend. My terrible, no good, relentlessly unfortunate legend.

In fairness to myself. I took a drop, then hit a 160-yard shot over a pond and onto the green, about three feet from the pin, and I tapped the ball in for bogie.

A great save. For me.