Yay! In golf, they don’t call strikes!

Pretty much all I knew about golf I learned by watching Tiger Woods on TV and seeing the movie, The Legend of Bagger Vance. Sure I took lessons—twice. Once about ten years ago and three more lessons last summer.

Golf sounds like a good idea. I like to walk. Bob is going to retire—probably—someday —and we might like to play together. People use golf to develop friendships and build relationships. A lot of our friends like to golf. So I took a few golf lessons—ten years ago—when Bob first started talking about retirement. That was it— finito. Oh yes, I did go on two different courses—once with Ellie and Diane—and once with Dave and Nancy, but I didn’t actually golf—although I did drive the cart sometimes. Last summer, I took three more lessons with David because he wanted to learn to golf. Then I broke my leg and sent David golfing for a substitute Grandma Day with his Aunt Kathi. I figured I was done, again.

But it was not to be. This year, David asked to go golfing again—with me. I was concerned. Our friend, Rich, got hit in the head while golfing with his good friend—on his birthday—and is now losing his hearing.

I went to the driving range and consistently hit the barriers between golfers.

I woke up several times during the night in a sweat with golf nightmares. Then I pleaded with my hubby to take David on a Grandpa Day instead. I thought I could take David mini golfing and then hubby could do the real thing—but on the other hand, I wanted to use my golf equipment—that I optimistically acquired ten years ago after my first set of lessons. It really is quite nice—and shiny—clubs, fuzzy covers, towels, umbrella, tees, balls, little round markers, and a little fork like tool.

After talking nagging about this for two weeks, Hubby finally understood my dilemma and graciously agreed to go with us. I was greatly relieved but still concerned.

So on the evening before, just to build confidence, David and I went mini-golfing on two different courses.

Any bravado that I experienced the night before was quickly deflated at the driving range the morning of our outing.

Finally it was our tee time. I talked to myself and got as optimistic as possible. Actually I felt better when I saw that the golf carts had nice cup holders. I figured that was a good sign as I have a real affinity for good cup holders.

Bob had this great idea. We played a variation of something called, “Best Ball.” On the first drive off the tee, the golfer with the best ball—only took one stroke. The other two golfers had to take two strokes but picked up their ball and took it to the place of the best ball and continued from there. On one tee, I had the best ball!

So we had a great golf outing! David and I learned much about the rules and etiquette, like where to walk and stand and even where not to let your shadow cast. We did not lose our balls. No one asked us to leave the course.

Our outing was successful in every sense! Whew!

Thank you, Grandpa!