If...

...  after naming three songs by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, you still see a tilted head and raised eyebrows, she’s too young! 

Make no mistake, they're digging....

One-day views of "Driving Eagle"!  Sorta eerie, if you ask me...

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Could it be true that there are no coincidences?

I loved the movie Signs … and the sci-fi 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still  (like my game today).


Anyway, Coach decides a few weeks back that a small oak tree is in serious drought condition. He makes a heroic and selfless decision to improve its plight. In that effort he discovers a Ping Driver—a “coyote club,” if you will, out in the middle of nowhere opposite the tee on 13. Clearly, it was from decades ago (and we date it back to that long ago from the model, condition of the grip, and accumulation of dirt and dust attached to it). No kidding, he finds a driver! We all saw it, watched him as he climbed down from the small hill and examined it like it was a fossil.


Well, it was and is a fossil. Obviously, someone not at all enamored of the club went rogue and flung it into the forest. I wonder how many animals walked by it, shaking their head and making rude gestures at it. Coach, whom we all know is all about curiosity, decides he’s going to try to drive a ball with this, this relic. He tees a ball up after reconditioning the club with a towel, takes his stance, and proceeds to smack his yellow orb farther than his regular driver (Mike’s ex) ever hoped for. Some days later, on the same hole, he hits what can only be described as a missile down to the jars, parallel to the last bridge on the right. This was not a wind-aided ball flight. This was a power-fade of epic proportions!



A close examination of the club shows that it was for sale at some point (the price tag faded to barely readable and wrapped around the neck offered it used for $15.99). I exaggerate not!  He has used it every round since the discovery; he won’t use anything else!



Hole13 has some special spirit and affection/affliction for Coach Hart—the film shank, the perfect bullet into a small hole in that tree, and of course The Ping Thing. It might have stayed there for decades, centuries! But no!


Perhaps there are no coincidences …  

Golf...

... is like an itch that moves every time you go to scratch it!

Helter Skelter Golf

It was one of those days when, after one hole, you decided/knew that no matter what you attempted, your swing would not agree to it. It had gone Benedict Arnold off the first tee and decided to “freelance” and pretend your arms were no longer attached to your body.

I announced to Coach and Fred that this would be a “practice” day, that I would not keep score, that I needed to “find my game, my swing.” The nods were weak and without understanding at first. In time, they both came to realize that the only thing missing in my cart was a robot saying, “Danger Will Robinson, Danger!”


Lost again in my own space! Who pulls the carrot? Who is the sadistic SOB that one week lets achievement permeate the game only to be ripped back like a bandaid being removed from a hairy chest? What did I do? What sin was it that drew the world back in revulsion, hands covering mouths and heads shaking in disapproval?


Meanwhile Fred’s and Coach’s swings are mimicking a goddamn pendulum! Fred is offering advice and I’m trying. Coach is not completely sure I am no longer armed, so he has decided to look at me like, “Yeah, I lost my cat once, too …”


So. I’ve decided: I must be shrinking. Oh, it’s nearly imperceptible, but it is happening. I can hear my voice rising an octave in the morning. My feet are not fitting my shoes—this explains it all! My clubs are no longer “fitted” right—I need to begin choking up on them! The shrinking will cost me a fortune in clothes. I’ll have to move my seat up in my new car every other day. Yeah, yeah, that’s it—I’m shrinking! I’m going to end up in a spider’s web with Vincent Price shaking his head, saying, “If only he had found his game!”


… and summer is just starting! 

A shot in the dark!

We've seen all kinds of shots: the miracle ricochet, the pond skipper, the tree keeper—and the list goes on. Here's an addition.

Coach is about 150 yards out on number 13. His drive, unfortunately, has ended up in the left rough, and a small oak tree blocks any reasonable shot. He either goes around the tree or over it, and the latter is not an option. He grabs his fairway wood and gives it all he has ...

Look carefully at the next set of pictures. You'll note on the tree a small hole. (I have enlarged it in the two pictures following this one.)

Now you can see it better ...

And now you can see it clearly!

Well, the ball came off his club like a bullet. I was able to track it until its abrupt stop, or entrance, into that small hole no wider than four inches! There was doubt among the duffers as to the veracity of my claim as I yelled, "It … it went into the hole!" Since no one saw a ricochet or heard the ball land anywhere else, an investigation clearly was in order. Coach, who has been known to go out on a limb for an errant ball, climbed the tree and peered in ...

"Yep, there it is," he said.

(Picture taken by Coach)

Hard to see, especially for us elders, but if you look really hard at the lower left, you can just make out a dull image of a ball! 

Just another golf story? You had to be there!

Coach climbing down ... What happens next can't possibly matter or compare; let’s leave it here ...

Sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwww play day