“A Game of Ups and ever so many D
O
W
N
S”
Well we started the day way ahead of ourselves – the Big Fella had already competed in the Men’s Competition a day and a half before and I was entering the Ladies’ Tuesday Comp at 6.50a.m. on a Sunday – enthusiasm or what? Not only that, we legged it off in our 2-ball before the Brat Pack had made their draw and sent their Sunday Possies on out.
Well, all that eagerness caught up with me at the 1st green – up beside it in three and only a nasty itch to be had – c’est la vie – the round was young and my eyes not yet open. And lo, what a second I had – on the green in 4 and putting for a female par – ‘twas not to be but I briefly became Ms Annette Birdie, which was nice. But the round slid from then on with the only even moderately reliable part of my game – putting – utterly unable to cope with the ridiculously good greens, a situation not even remotely assisted by a Titleist 2 inexplicably scared of the dark. Although, in hindsight, sticking same ball in my pocket from green to tee may provide an explanation for its heretofore misunderstood achluophobia (thank you Google).
Now, to be fair, it is not that I wasn’t hitting any good shots – I did. At least three or four on BOTH front and back nines… But the course was absolute poetry, both for golf and astounding (distracting, perchance?) natural beauty. Just after we’d driven off the 7th tee, the entire deer cast of Bambi cavorted across the fairway (not a hoofprint to be seen). A whole line of them from himself through all the herselves and maybe one or two weans. Now it was either a David Attenborough moment of pure natural beauty, or the herselves had all just realised simultaneously that she was not the only one, and himself was Dead Stag Walking… Breathtaking as it all was, it assisted my golf not one wee jot and onward the deadly itch went.
And then, upon the 8th, I had my first true Up of the round. After my drive, which made it comfortably through the gap before turning bananaesque to nestle comfortably on the right side of the big tree on the right side. In this case these two rights most certainly add up to a wrong, as my drive had been aimed for the yellow stake on the bleedin’ left of the gap. Unintentional trick shots make nobody laugh. Well, nobody with a will to see the end of the round, anyway. Anyhoo, the up.
We proceeded along towards our second shots and were brought to a stanstill by the sight of not one, not two, not even three but four squirrels all manically circling around their feedbox on the tree, scampering up and down and generally having a lovely ol’ time. My Up moment came as I was momentarily transformed into the adorable golden lab from the movie of the same name with the somewhat obvious exclamation of “Squirrel!” Brains to burn me. Brains to burn.
Alas, beauties of nature aside and wonderful fellow golfers aside, my golf was inflicting me once again with an almost terminal case of scratchiness. I endlessly reminded myself (and could, quite possibly also have been endlessly reminded) that the dual goals of the day were to i) submit completed 18 hole card and ii) get oh so desperately needed practice. On occasion, I may have aided this reminder by bouncing my club off my head – I would never disrespect our beautiful course by bouncing a club off our fairways (or rough – more frequently rough – ok, virtually always rough with occasional woodland / swamp / river / pond / path / buggy) AND the ringing, nay operatic if somewhat hollow tone of club on skull was artistically and musically pleasing also.
The back nine, approached as always with empty bladder and just opened bottle of caffeine, held the usual 3 to 4 good shots that will bring me back for more. Just imagine how exciting it’ll be when I can hit a whole string of those shots together and actually bring in a score. But to be fair to the almost saintly level of patience that the Big Fella demonstrates towards his somewhat troublesome student, towards the end of the round I did start to correct some of the glitches in my swing which resulted in some lovely straight shots and a moderate to almost good amount of distance. Unfortunately, I had aimed somewhat to the left to allow for same glitches and when they didn’t happen the ball travelled straight where I was aiming. If those shots were politicians they’d be so far left they’d be Trotskyists. No score on the Left either, alas.
In short, on the day the golf was not too good. But it was a lovely day for a walk and the delicious and caffeine rich fresh-scone-with-butter-black-as-night-freshly-ground-coffee more than made up for same. She lied convincingly.