Golf Humour

Have you ever heard the joke about the old men who were golfing their 16th hole, high on a hill, when a funeral procession slowly drove by? One of the men took notice, stood up straight and tall, removed his cap and held it close to his heart. Another of the men commented on how much the first man respected the dead, and the man replied, cap on his heart, "well we'd been married for over 40 years!" For some reason, that joke has stuck with me (and I tell it much better when typing...no chance of telling the punchline before it's time!). It seems very sad to me, but a good indication of how some marriages end up...sports or hobbies put before one's spouse, probably because one's spouse is like a leaky faucet drip drip dripping all the time. It's my hope and prayer that no matter how much Tris loves golf, he'll always want to come home at the end.

With this in mind, a girlfriend and I decided to head out on our own to the local driving range while our husbands were out on the course. We'd hit a few balls, gather a few good stories about how far we hit those balls, and head home knowing we were working on our skills for the benefit of our husbands. It sounded good. Little did we know that we were going to create a sense of terror at the range. Before I go on, let me explain that clubs are hard to come by here. We could rent a bunch for $10 but why would we when my girlfriend has an old bag of woods and a putter in her garage?

When my friend M and I met at 7 am to head to the range, we realized that both husbands had taken our cars, so we popped the 3 woods (clubs) into M's bike basket and we rode our bikes to the range. It kind of reminded me of Huck and Tom riding their bikes to the creek with fishing poles on hand. Not a problem when you're in a hick town, but here, at one of the more prestigious places to play, we were directed IMMEDIATELY upon entry into the motorcycle parking. That didn't phase us. We took our three ancient (but very beautiful, I might add) woods to the front desk, and after a few wrong turns, we ended up at the range.

May I start by saying that I haven't hit a golf ball for at least two years, and M admitted the same. As a result, our first few tries were only ok. After a few more we had some pretty good shots going. I even felt a little cocky when I shot over 105 yards. Then, something happened. Something we can't quite put our fingers on. The balls starting hitting the post beside us, the metal plate beside us, and once, the roof above us. We giggled a bit, made funny faces at the staff who were watching us from a distance, and who moved an even greater distance after the first ball headed their way. I have to admit that after they were pegged off with the 2nd ball, they watched us while they ducked behind their counter, with only their very wide eyes staring at us. I think astonishment was in those eyes, but I'm not too sure. I was too embarrassed to look for very long.

I was so proud of myself when I heard the man next to us speaking Indonesian to a staff member, and I knew what he was saying. I was NOT so proud when I realized that the man was telling the staff member to change our rubber tee, that ours was too high. THAT's what was going wrong!! Except, the next few balls were almost as bad as before. Finally, we had two men approach us from either side. One was suggesting that we move our mat forward, so that our balls would no longer ricochet off the post to our right (and inevitably hit him). The second man actually left the lesson that he was teaching down the deck and, uninvited and without word, began to show M (she happened to be standing on the mat at the time) how to use the "power" in her arm. Apparently we were using power from our shoulders. Gotta remember that for next time! Thankfully he used up about 20 of our golf balls while showing M how to hit (we were done).

The miracle of it all was when this instructor grabbed a 7 iron from a staff member and let us use that ("FREE!" he said); we actually hit our balls straight and high. We looked not bad (can't say good yet) and although we just wanted to leave, were able to shoot out the rest of our balls without event or injury. I have to say that I chuckled from the moment that I laid eyes on the staff members hiding behind their counter, laughed a little harder when the man asked us to move our mat, and almost fell on the floor when the instructor insisted on helping us (and I am grateful to him). I tried not to disrespect the game of golf, but there was no respect in my playing, that's for sure. By the time we left, unable to make eye contact with anyone there except the instructor, who stuck his hand out for a shake as we passed, we were ready to burst. We hopped on our bikes, stuck the woods into the basket and rode our bikes home.

Our conclusion? We probably aren't made to golf, at least not a lot, but we ride our bikes REALLY well.

Thanks for reading.