“Sunny days make the dew go away…”
Day Two of Open Week 2013 arrived in an exceptionally beautiful but starting to get a little bit scary sunny Saturday. ‘Twas a Standard Stableford Classic Two Scores Per Hole kind of a day and off we all romped in the early sunlight with not a care in the world nor a thought in the head. Certainly not in my head, anyway.
My drive on the 1st was twice the length of yesterday’s, maybe more – it was on the fairway in one and happy(ish) I was. But the 1st was a battle against the elements and the challenges of the course. My 3rd went for a refreshing dip. So refreshing that, after my ball had been retrieved, chastised and penalty-dropped, he jolly well headed off for a day at the beach in the bunker to left of green. We are not amused.
My brill teammates were grafting away, pulling in the scores on 1st, 2nd & 3rd while I continued to come to terms with my new Straight Shot Affliction which is playing havoc with my Compensate For Slice Habit. But I was full of positivity (and Capital Letters…) as I headed for the 4th Tee Box. It was gonna be a good ‘un. Real good. And it wasn’t. Not too good at all. But inspiration is a funny old thing. As I gently re-inserted my driver to my bag (that titanium plate in the bottom is a life saver) I glanced over at the Tee Box. It was still very early and same box was still in the shade and heavily covered in dew. Mine were the only footprints as I was the first female on the course. For just a moment, I thought I could express myself in a modern way by foot-shuffling out a rude word into the dew. Using Nature as Art. But I didn’t.
The 5th Green evaded 3 of us, I was in the far left bunker. But both I and The Junior came thundering through, waving our handicaps and getting a pair of 3’s on the card – yee-har. The 6th & 7th brought me back down to earth with a bone jolting crunch which entirely unsettled me until the 12th. You start me juddering and the aftershocks are mighty.
But, today I had the 13th Tee Box all to myself. And I hit a peach of a drive and tuned my ears for the sound of my teammates’ drives swooshing overhead so I could track them for future reference. But then confusion began. I began to hear ball-swooshing from all quarters and was starting to feel distinctly under attack. Thank God for the ring of trees, the ring of fence and my ludicrously bright face & shirt colour combination which all combined to protect me from the onslaught of ever-so-slightly-misjudged drives. And not only from the 13th Blues, oh no, from the 18th Blues also and a wee murmuring from the 10th as well. But I remained safely unhit and carried on to play my round.
As I began my journey to the Ladies’ 14th Tee, my brill teammates went to their Blue 14th to take their shots. I paced my walk, as another team were putting on the 11th and I wished to disturb them not. I paused as each man took his putt in case my clicky knees and grindy hip became distractions. As I walked on I heard the most dreaded acronym in the English language – “FORE” (Flatten Or Regret Eternally) followed by my name. The ball passed me by harmlessly but my verbal response to the putters of “and they’re on MY team!” was greeted with slightly nervous laughter.
The trauma of the experience fed my inner Drama Queen to such a level that the rest of the round passed in an entirely unfamiliar haze of duffed shots and near misses, nothing like my normal expert course work. (It is so lovely to have something other than myself to blame, delusional as it may be). The fact that my teammates never even noticed just shows how terribly impassive I can make my face remain despite the inner trauma and how ridiculously hot ‘n’ cold my version of the Beautiful Game of Golf goes. But the extraordinarily sunny day and preternaturally fine course made Day 2 of Open Week 2013 just the very finest. Must go to work now…