Bad-golfers indeed!

 Calvin and I played nine at the Country Club last week. It was a pretty miserable outing, but we had a fun time anyway. Two bad-golfers out on a gorgeous day, hitting the stupid little white ball every which way but straight. 

The badness of our game has blotted out some of the details, but a few high points stand out: The first tee, where I usually have a good start on things, I hit the first ball 30 feet and the second ball a miserable pop fly off to the right. Being a proud man I only allow myself one mulligan per tee, so I had to play the terrible second shot and actually hit a pretty good mashie. One of the few good shots of my day. But of course, it being fall, there are lots of leaves lying around on the fairway just waiting to hide a ball, so my nice mashie effort got lost, the first ball of many on this day to disappear completely into golf-ball purgatory. Maybe I'll find them next season. 

"Calvin, be sure to hit it to the right of the fairway here on two," and of course he hits it in a line to the left side of the fairway. I hit to the right but not nearly far enough, and trying to lay up my second shot flew off into the woods. Buh-bye, ball. 

We were just terrible, both of us. Balls simply refused to go straight. It was like they all got together beforehand and plotted to mess us up on every hole. "Dude," I overheard one of mine say to one of his, "I'm going to bounce off a tree and land deep in the woods; you fly off to the left and make Calvin search for you!" Which is precisely what they did on 3. 

After a bad first attempt on the par-3 fourth I hit a lovely shot right onto the green! Oh, that felt good, but the ball had its way with me later (perhaps it had been conspiring with my putter?) and I had to settle for a bogie 4. 

On five we hit almost identical bad tee shots, our balls ending up only about three feet apart, where they whispered to each other and giggled at our pathetic attempts to be good-golfers. I recall one good shot on that hole but the rest was a flailing mess. 

Six was no better. Calvin lost his first ball, I hit it well but short then subsequently landed in a bunker. Fortunately I had powerful fragmentation grenades strapped to my belt and tossed one in that bunker and blew it up so it wouldn't hurt anyone ever again. 

The par-5 seventh is so pretty and interesting, and we both hit pretty good drives and managed to avoid the beckoning lake, which was miraculous, given our day so far. I think we each scored 138 on that hole. I could hear it snickering at us as we walked to eight. 

Par-3 eight challenges one to pick the right club. I didn't. I fluctuate between a 6, my spade mashie, which usually goes long and left, or a 7, which often ends up short. With my 7, or mashie niblick, I  barely managed to convince the ball to go about 90 yards, about 2/3 of the way to the raised green. 

Golf clubs used to have silly names.

Finally we reached the ninth, relieved that we were still upright and breathing. It went as well as the rest of our round. 

I whipped out my advanced scientific calculator to tally up our score and we ended up with me ahead by one stroke. But I think that's a lie; Calvin, bless his little heart, tends to be accurate and honest when keeping score, which I find adorable. So I think we were even at best and maybe he even bested me by a couple. But there it was on the scorecard, me ahead by one. He was lovely: "boy, you kicked my ass today!" In truth, the game of golf kicked both our asses. 

But who cares? It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, the trees were glowing in their reds and oranges, the air was crisp, and in fact the game of golf won, really, by giving two besties a chance to spend some fun time together and laugh at ourselves. And that's really what it's about, right? 

Meanwhile, I plan to hit the course again this Thursday or Friday. If one learns from one's mistakes, then I learned an encyclopedic amount this round, and who knows, I might really break 50 honestly my next nine holes. If not, I'll have fun trying!