Yes, of course, BLAME BARB! Get those excuses in order. Hell, I don't care, we had a grand time. FIRST of all, while my dad and I were awaiting the maddening throngs at the Barrington Park District Golf Course, he said, "there won't be any body out here for golf. It's just too cold."
"I'll bet you a dime at least one player shows."
And show, she did, Nancy, with a laugh in her face!
So, we trotted over to the first tee (225 par 4, dogleg left - unless you hit your drive about 75 yards, in which case, it becomes a 150 yard par 4!) and I pull out my 7-iron, planning on hitting a high hard draw. W E L L ... instead, I get the damn low straight ball, right into the trap. Nancy (we had each taken three clubs - 22 degree metal, putter, 5-iron for Nancy, 7-iron for me) pulls out the 22 degree club and R I P S it, about 145 (we are into the wind) into the fairway bunker, about 4 feet behind me, also in the bunker).
So, she kind of muffs one out, and I show her my duck-billed platypus stance (feet spread out) for nipping a fuller shot cleanly off a fairway bunker. I lift my head and hit it all chuncky, we are still looking for the gawd damned piece of sheeit golf ball, but, I decided to toss one down, and play it.
Nancy muffs her third, I leave mine just short of the green. Nancy hits her fourth on, about 6 feet away. One thing is quite evident, she has IMPROVED from "back in the day," and is clearly better than Susan B. Gillies ever was when I played with her, ALTHOUGH, that was a long time ago, and if Susan ever retired to the land of luxury and took lessons from instructors as good as the one Nancy has, Susan is probably a single digit handicap player by now.
I chip it tight, take the putt. Nancy hits it a litte too far to the left, EXCEPT, that there is water (cold water, very cold water) in the cup, that she notes as she picks up her ball and we proceed to the next tee, #2, 157 yard par three, straight away, sand traps guarding the green both front left and front right.
I chilly dip a 7-iron leaving it about 50 yards short of the green. Now I must immediately beat nancy to the punch line: "Does your wife play golf too?" I inquire, of myself. "Yes, and she beats me like a baby seal," I reply, with disgust. Nancy hits a VERY high shot (the rubber tees under the mats are very high on most holes out there) but she hits it absolutely squarely.
"Move it wind, move it right," I exhort. YES, dammit, I talk to golf balls in flight. You think this is ridiculous, that nothing I can say will impact the ball after it is struck, its flight is begun, and gravity eventually reigns it in? Well, your thoughts sure align with much of modern scientific theory, but let me ask you this: If it doesn't matter whether or not I DEMAND great things of my balls (or any body else's balls) then so be it; BUT - what if it DOES make a difference, if CHAOS THEORY is correct and that a butterfly flapping its wings on one side of a globe is the catalyst for a tsunami that emanates from the other side? In which case, do you now want to sit silent, sit passive, and wait while your loving golf ball is thinking to itself, "What's the matter, mon? Ye cannae e'en cheer me awn? You dun believe in me mon? Where is the laddie of yer yewt dat once played 54 holes wid me, and THEN ya cheert and and ya roart and ya extorted me on as if ya wuz a true believer. What happened to yer faith, laddie? Ah, would but that ya cud play wid your balls like ya wuz a chilt one and again."
And thus and so, I continue to play with my balls like I was a child again. And it is GOOD! And I call out to the heavens, exhorting them on, to do the aerodynamically impossible; to do the topographically unlikely; to do my fawking beck and call, dammit, mon, dontch know?
And, sumbit mutha humpah, there be daze when I swear by the daze still left, we'll not only walk in fields of gold, but the damn ball be LISTENIN' to me, and it HEEDS MY CALL because it knows that I believes in it, and thus, it believes in me.
All things are connected - (Chief Seattle)
There are more things on this earth than are dream't of in your philosophy, Horatio (William Shakespeare)
I get all fast and wristy in my chipper shotter and leave the piece of crap short. Shit. Then chip to 6", take the gimme. "Hole's full of water, Nancy," I tells her, jest to let her know. "Okay, I'll lag," she replies, and does, saving her fingers from the chillin' of the cold water in the cup.
Next hole, Nancy's honors. She hits a dishonorable shot, but, LIKE YOU CHUCK, she has her excuses all lined up. The tee is just too high for this club, which is actually a tight lies metal club. OOPS - my apologies Nancy - you wuzunt making excuses, you were stating a simple truth: Damn tight lies clubs are meant to get your ass out of tight lies, not to hit a ball that is 2" off the friggin mat!
"Take a mully," I tells her. She does, and hits a very solid shot, but, again, we are into the teeth of a Northwesterly gale force wind; has to be 35 mphs.
Now, I am gonna' show her how GOOD I am. Weight pressed forward, hands pressed forward, aimed plenty far to the right (235 yard par 3, slight dog leg left, OB left (the train tracks), 100' tall trees to carry over if you take a direct line from the tee to the pin, a little pond about 110 yards out just to annoy you if you hit a snap hook, with a fence line paralleling the rail road tracks. This is one of the two fence lines we need to take seriously, The other to-be-taken-seriously fence line protects the parking lot and nursery behind the fifth green from being invaded by a herd of raging golfers with bad backs that can't climb through or under its wooden rails, and can't high step over it. HOWEVER, the wooden rail fence behind #1 green is NOT OB, because it is still park district property, although, on a Saturday afternoon, there will be either lots of soccer players (as was the case), or baseball players (as would have been the case April-August).
I RIP the 22 degree club, with a draw, low trajectory, brilliant friggin' shot. The wind beats it down, like a field master on a southern plantation in the 1800's relentlessly giving 100 lashes to some uppity slave thought to be a rabble rouser. It is important to beat the hell out of the suspected rabble rousers, otherwise, their mind set will affect the throngs, and when you are out-numbered by a factor of 100's to one, it would not do for the slaves to come to realize that their numerical advantage alone was sufficient to overthrow their oppressor's yoke, and gain, ultimately, freedom for their race, freedom for their tribe, but a the very-much-alive threat of an early termination of this mortal coil.
When people are willing to lay down their lives for a cause greater than their own solipsistic selves, then they are truly empowered, even more so than when engaged in acts of procreation, or intercessory prayer, and because one is only willing to lay down one's life for a cause greater than one's own ONLY when that cause is righteous, in the end, RIGHTEOUS WINS, as would discover the peoples of French Indo-China (better known as Vietnam), the peoples of Afghanistasn (time and time and time and time and time again - the first three v. the Brits, the fourth v. the Ruskies, and now, finally, against us, the USA, the greatest force for military murder and military destruction ever unleashed upon the face of the earth. FINALLY, and thank fawking Gawd, lest the tear-or-eests win and the American way of life, Capitalism (okay, I'll concede, corporate welfare state), Democracy (okay, again, I'll concede, a Republic - if you can keep it), Christianity (okay, again, I'll concede, the founding fathers were deists, who believed in a Creator of the Universe, but further believed that He had withdrawn from active participation in the affairs of this world; the arrogant fools - they mostly believed in the righteous of the institution of slavery too, which should tell you about all you need to know about most of them; it was a convenience, and fortunes could be made upon the backs of slave labor - the arrogant fools never recognized the miracle God Almighty bestows upon human kind day after day after ceaseless day - the miracle of TIMING - the irregulars survived Valley Forge (Washington despised the irregulars - undisciplined, many had to be flogged, for their own good, of course, and they wouldn't even fight in nice taught lines, as was done in the theaters of the bloody (to the troops) wars in Europe, but fought from behind trees, shot, fell back; they would not stand to fight a vastly superior force, well trained in close quarters combat, they would not stand to fight a far-better armed force; no, they shot, retreated, reloaded, shot again, until their cover or their shells ran out, and then ran lie Calloway to safety. Hardly military men, these. BUT THEY WERE THE ONLY TROOPS HE HAD, AND HE WAS FORCED TO FIGHT WITH THEM, FOR THERE WERE NONE OTHERS ANSWERED THE CALL; these men were insurgents - by definition, an insurgent is a native to the soil that an imperial armed force seeks to control in order that the armed forces sovereign monarch rule and control the peoples and their resources by force of arms. The Brits (and the Hesseians subsequently, the Brits, having over-extended their forces in their always doomed and ill-fated quest to rule the world, and having VASTLY underestimated the resisting force that the guerilla war fare fighters would put up, the Brits would be forced to acknowledge eventually, got a small taste of defeat - by a nation of British-born subjects who merely wanted to make their fortunes in America and trade with Britain, which was a win-win situation for Great Britain, until King George III decided he needed to raise more money for the further imperial adventures in Europe, in Africa, in the Balkans, etc, etc, etc. The resultant loss of trade was perhaps 100 times greater than the tax revenues that would have been raised by the tea tax.
BUT, as my dearly departed brother John was so oft wont to say, "I digress."
Nancy hits her second on the green, checks out the cup, once again, a very wet landing spot. She makes an easy four. I hit a hard-low half-seven iron approach shot that lands 6" behind the hole, but it was so low, it can't stop in its tracks, and ends up rolling about 30' beyond the pin. I also make 4.
Fourth hole, 215 yards par three, straight away, OB left (well, no fence, but parking lot, Irish Bakery, Days Inn, parking lot strongly suggest OB left), gaping bunker protecting the front right half of the green. Nancy, still with the honors, tees off with the 5-iron. Sheeit, the broad was serious about that tight lies club being wrong. She hits a very nice shot, about 160. I take a very smooth, very slow backswing and RRRRRIIIIIPPPPP the best 22 degree metal club of my life, which lands just short of the green, and then, the muthah rolls off over the back edge of the green. One of the five longest tee shots I've ever hit on the hole, 235! What a difference a wind makes!
Nancy hits it on, observes that there is no water in the cup, and damn near makes her 8' putt. I look up and make a wrist wave at my chip shot which rolls 10' past the hole. FAWK, another friggen' Bogey, mon.
Last hole, 140, par three, bunker guards the left side, tree limbs hang out intimidating you into keeping it to the right of their branches, which requires that you aim 15 yards to the right of the pin.
We make two inauspicious fours, and after the first five holes, we are tied!
Nancy quips, "if I'd have known you were going to be counting, I would have taken it much more seriously."
"Hell, Nancy," says I, "If you'd have just quit missing your putts to keep your hands from freezing you would have kicked my butt!"
No reason to tell the players what the game is until after you've won, I always say.
And then we had a great time at lunch - my friend and long-suffering bridge partner Tom Sucher showed up, and brought me a Verner's Cola. Later, my sister showed up. Tom talked with my old man, which was a good thang. Ralph has had constipation (I think he calls it an upset stomach) for almost four weeks (Well, apparently his bowels are working again, I get a descriptive play by play account of "the movements" from him each day. Ralph has lots of friends, but they just want to take him out. Nobody really wants to talk with him (he's boring) or give him a chance to open up and talk about his feelings; his sense of loss having been with her for almost 65 years; but, Tom is very wise in the matters, and, besides, it was a chance for just us girls (Will, Mark, Nancy) to rip roar it up with yucks.
Mo to Follo'
All my best wishes for you and yours
May peace and blessing flow down upon your house like living waters
With Love to you, and ALL YOU LOVE,
Mark Raymond Ganzer
