Golf Tournament

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN OCTOBER 30, 2012

Once a month we have a tournament among our Tuesday golfers and today was the day. Seventy two  men broken down into 18 teams playing for big money. This morning I had great expectations until I met my team. One fellow was gulping down pain killers as he had surgery on his back and he fell while trimming one of his trees.

Another was a retired doctor who was 85 years old and couldn't see beyond his nose. We had to keep an eye on his ball after every drive when he would shout, "where's my ball"? The third was the leader and decided that every member of the group should follow his instructions when playing, especially when putting. Then there was me. I decided to be a humorist and take everything in stride until he started to tell me about my stance when driving the ball.

The wind was a steady 30 mph and under these conditions we all had difficulty but with his help we managed to keep the ball out of the water some of the time. Most teams when playing best ball would end up 5 or 6 under par. We were three over par after 9 holes. Our leader was a good golfer and managed to keep us in the game on some holes  but the look on his face when we did not meet his expectations was something to behold.

Our pill-taker broke out the beer after the first nine and offered us a choice between a Bud or Perrier water. We decided the offer was well meaning but wouldn't help our game. We managed to do a little better in the second 9 and even had two birdies but it did not make up for the boogies on the other holes.

I couldn't wait for the game to end and as we shook hands and said what a great time we had he ,the leader offered to buy us a real drink. We took him up on the offer and found him to be an OK guy at the bar. It is amazing what golf will do to some people. By the way we came second last with a score of five over par.I was not happy but will be back next Tuesday.