Golf is a funny sport. It can make one frustrated, angry, depressed and agitated all at the same time.
Nevertheless, last time I was home my brother Will wanted to go play a round at Blackberry Trail golf course in Florence, Ala. It’s not exactly Augusta National but it suffices.
For some reason, Will loves the game and is pretty good.
He says he is on his middle school golf team, but since he has been on the team-over two months-they haven’t played a match yet. Whether the team exists is debatable.
Anyway, he begged me to go play, and I finally gave in.
At least it got me out of yard work. I had to borrow my dad’s clubs, which look like they were played by Arnold Palmer when Arnie was a kid. The woods were still wooden, for crying out loud.
Will, on the other hand, had a complete new set of clubs, completed by the $109 putter he had bought the day before. He said he wanted to go test his clubs out before golf team “practice” the next day.
The skies were dark, and I was hoping that it would rain when we got to the first hole, an easy par 4. In fact, the whole course is extremely easy.
I’m sure Tiger Woods could shoot a 50 on 18 holes. But for me it was like St. Andrews.
I pulled a ball that had “floater” written on it with a black marker.
“I wonder if this ball really floats,” I asked Will jokingly since golf balls don’t float.
“I think it does,” he said.
I addressed the ball and told myself, “nice, smooth swing and a loose grip.” I kept the grip loose and let loose a titanic swing, just like Tiger. The ball stayed on the tee but the club got some nice airtime as it slipped out of my hands and went flying backward toward someone’s house.
It was going to be a long day.
I recovered from the club toss and my first shot landing in the sand to actually beat Will on the first hole after he three-putted with his $109 putter. I reminded him of that fact and got an icy stare.
I beat him on the second hole, too, a par 3 which could be reached from tee to green with a putter. He four-putted on that one.
“How much did that putter cost, Will?”
“Shut up. It takes awhile to get used to the new putter.”
On the third hole, Will skulled his drive, took a mulligan, and then hit his second drive into the water. I spied a couple kids playing with some plastic clubs in their front yard right off the fairway (there is a subdivision built around the golf course) and told Will that he might want to consider using those clubs.
Another icy stare.
I tied him on that hole, thanks to the two chips and three puts it took for me to put it in the cup but still held a two shot lead over him.
Up to that point I had played pretty well considering I was using my dad’s clubs and hadn’t played in nine months. But this is where it got ugly. Perhaps it was the golf gods getting me back for taking a stroke off my score on the fourth hole. Whatever the reason, when it went bad, it went really bad.
The fifth hole had a pond right in front of the tee box. So I tried to compensate by hitting a four iron. No such luck. The ball made an awful thwack and disappeared into the water. And then appeared again. The ball was floating.
“I told you it would float,” Will said.
“Floater” found the water two more times on this hole but I was able to fish him out and continue using him. It became a conquest for me. Don’t lose “Floater” under any circumstances. I tapped in for my quadruple bogey and we came to the seventh hole, a par 3 with an island green. “Uh-oh.”
I knew that if “Floater” went into the water on this hole I wouldn’t be able to fish him out. I was sweating and shaking as I addressed “Floater,” trying not to hit him in the water. I picked the same four iron I had used when “Floater” got wet the first time, but this time the results were different. I skulled it, and “Floater” rolled to the edge of the water.
At this point I snapped. A full day of skulling my ball and hitting it into water hazards and trying to fish it out finally drove me to the brink. I went charging after “Floater” with my club over my head screaming at the top of my lungs, oblivious to the kid and the dog who were standing beside the pond watching the fish. I got to my ball, picked it up and threw it onto the green with my brother laughing hysterically in the background.
“There!” I shouted, convinced that I had won the battle with the pond.
I pulled out my $10 putter, two putted and called it a day.
Jeff Edwards is a journalism major who can be reached at [email protected].