Golfing!

We golfed over Thanksgiving weekend.  Mom, April, Lani, and I faced off in an epic competition against the very laws of physics while Tom played for the mere glory of hitting a golf ball into a hole. The 4 hour nine hole game was full of thrills, spills, and almost a few kills (more on that later). 

The first hole made us question the sanity of our society as we discovered that people had built their homes right on the fairway.  This naturally caused April, Lani, and me to timidly smack our golf balls into the massive expanse of brush that stood between where we teed off, and the fairway.  What incentive drove them to offer up their homes as “golfing hazards” like the sand traps, ponds, or nearby forests?  We couldn’t fathom a reason so Mom in righteous indignation shanked a ball at a house in protest, and would have taken out a window if she had just put a little more oomph into it.  She then followed that up by casually performing the first trick shot of the day.  In the pictures below you will see that even though she swings her club with great force and hits the ball, the ball ends up behind the club!  This trick shot was so popular that the rest of us, except Tom, continued to attempt it throughout the rest of the game to varying degrees of success.  Tom just kept trying to whack the ball into the hole in as few hits, strokes, whatever as possible.  Boring!

We discovered around the third or fourth hole our style of play was more deliberate than most.  I guess not all golfers appreciate the time intensive nature and craftsmanship required to do trick shots.  I will also admit that some time may have been used by a few balls giving their lives to the game as they were hit into brush, ponds, or perhaps taken up into heaven in the Rapture (we don’t know they just vanished).  Anyway, we decided to allow some of the golfers behind us to “play through.” Some of the golfers decided to bypass us, and just go to the next hole.  Perhaps they saw Mom’s trick shot  and thought they’d be safer ahead of us instead of behind us?  Yet, other golfers decided to run roughshod over us.  One particularly exciting experience was when we pulled well off the fairway to let a group “play through.”  As we hunkered down behind our carts a ball fell from the sky landed with a thud in the middle of our little caravan of carts, and only five feet or so from April.  Then a faintly hollered “Fore!” followed like a child at the end of a great dane’s leash.  When the golfers came to see if they had gotten us, Tom kindly explained to them that they need to yell “Fore!” before ball lands on someone.  They didn’t look convinced, but Tom’s wisdom seemed on point to me.

With the constant pressure of having golfers at our backs waiting for us, we created unique method of teeing off that still allowed us to play our “style” of golf.  In the picture below you can see the lovely ladies of our group all teeing off at the same time.  This sped up our game just enough that we were able to finish without making the other golfers wait more than five or ten minutes at each of the last three holes.  Its nickname is 3T's, aka The Triple Threat, and if you had been there you would know just how much of a threat it was.

It also provided enough time that I could practice a few special shots of my own.  In the pictures you’ll see how I was able to really get under that ball.  Just look at that trajectory!  

Even though there were some scary moments, lots of duck poop, and a few mumblings about the cold weather and how it affected one’s ability to grip the clubs, we had fun, and it wasn't harrowing.