The weak dawn strengthened to a warm misty 7:00 am. The fairway ahead was patterned with the greenkeepers favourite Pringle and invited the perfect drive.The rushing sound of my partner’s driver, looping through the air in a leisurely practice swing, was the only sound as we contemplated the first.
“What do you reckon Al, going to go for it with the big stick?” He cajoled, knowing that my weakest holes were the first four.
“Nah, I’ll just knock a five wood down the middle” I replied, feeling a bit of a wimp. “Every time I try to hit a driver here I end up in the trees on the left”.
The trees on the left are actually the start of massive conservation woodlands that surround the whole course.
“Well it’s you first, you’re the lowest handicap at present” He said, knowing there was just point five difference between us.
I slid the Mizuno five wood out of the bag and contemplated the beautiful deep blue head that was reflecting the early sunshine and tenderly wiped the face of it with my thumb.
“OK”. I took two or three practice swings, each increasing in ferocity, emulating the same rushing sound that he had been making with his driver, trying to intimidate him with my confidence. I placed the ball and tee together into the turf and aligned myself, following the same habitual routine. I took a deep breathe and then exhaled slowly, turned equally as slowly to the top of my backswing, then whipped everything round into the downswing, feeling it start with my hips, back, shoulders, arms and finally wrists, striking hard into the back of the ball.
Perfection, it felt just right, I saw the impact, heard the crack, turned and watched the ball arc high and straight towards that quilted looking grassway. It landed and bounded on into an ideal position for the next shot…
" Your go" I said, watching him rummage through his bag for a different club.
I had left my bag alongside my ball on the fairway and entered the forest to search for a Titleist ‘with five green dots’ belonging to Charlie. The bluebells were eye-achingly brilliant where the sun streamed in through the canopy. The smell took me back to my childhood, when I used to collect armfuls of them for my mother.
“Oh sod it” He said, indicating the ball nestling in the flora, inches away fom an oak tree.
I walked back towards my ball, colliding with a Top-Flite sized bumble bee, too busy with its heavy shopping to notice the golfer in its path. I heard the snap of a branch and turned in time to see a ball exoceting from the deep woodland, four feet above the ground and fast. It hit the bank in front of the greenside bunker, rocketed thirty feet vertically and fell, in slow motion, catching the top lip of the bunker, bounced, once only, to finish four feet from the pin.
Charlie emerged from the forest, wiping bluebells from his clubhead and brushing leaves and debris from his jumper,“Did you see where it went Al?” He asked, looking round, wide eyed with anxiety.
“No” I said “I wasn’t watching”.
So here we were, both on the green in regulation, bags parked by the second tee, confidence brimming, putters tucked under arms. We removed our gloves and strolled onto the perfect emerald oasis. A skylark soared up trying to distract us predators from its nest, somewhere in the rough.
“No need to worry wee birdy - till next week ” said Charlie grinning manically.
I went to repair my pitchmark, twenty feet away from the hole but on line.“ I never get backspin” I said bitterly, marking my ball nearly one foot behind the pitch.
“ It’s still a birdie putt” said Charlie. I wondered how he’d manage to walk with a putter inserted.
“ Hey, have you seen this” he said. I strolled over to see what he was staring at. Right on the line of his four foot putt was an exhausted bumble bee, with yellow saddlebags, crawling towards the hole.
“It’s an immovable obstruction” I said “You’ll have to play round it”
As I lined up my twenty foot putt, all I could see from the corner of my eye was Charlie, with his arm outstretched, holding his putter extended, moving ever so slowly towards the rough.
I made the putt. Charlie missed his left, the bee had left spikemarks apparently.
I was one up.
“Out of bounds down the left Al” Charlie chirruped, as I reached into my bag for the big gun. I slid it out of its holster and gazed at it. Since I had bought this club I had extolled its virtues to everyone I knew who played golf. Emblazoned on its shaft was the legend ‘Active Kick’, and the name Accel-arc. Over the last three weeks Charlie had learned to hate the wand like qualities that this club had waved over my long game. So much so in fact that he had threatened to saw it in half.
A Muntjac deer scampered across the fairway, startling the crows that live on the two hundred yard mark, they rolled up into the air and floated back to their pecking order.I aimed for them as usual, trying to drive them away. This time however the ball faded right, heading disastrously toward the mean gorse on the bank. The crows stared back, blackly.
“Out of bounds down the left Chas” I said spitefully, slamming the useless driver back in the bag.
I had watched my partner's ball part the crows and split the fairway, rolling to a perfect lie fifty yards further on. In the meantime I contemplated my second shot from the bank. Luckily the ball was perched on a dandelion plant, not far from the needled gorse. I took the five wood out of the bag that had served me so well on the first and made a practice swing at another dandelion. Having established that I could remove a single bloom without damage to anything else, I took a deep breathe and then exhaled slowly, turning slowly to the top of my backswing and then whipped everything round into the downswing.
It was at this point that a large, but obviously tired bumblebee, decided to extract nectar from my Strata Distance golf ball. Maybe it was the surprise, perhaps I looked up too soon but it just didn't feel right, However, I was aware of the impact, heard the crack and followed through.The ball remained perched on the dandelion.
The Top-Flite, tank-topped bumblebee, I had no doubt, would be pin high, four feet from the flag.
The pond by the side of the green was home to moorhens and ducks. Its stillness reflected the bulrushes that stood guard, like moles on sticks. Only the odd deposit left by the water birds, as they trekked to the beach with their young, marred the beauty of the green.
Charlie was on for three but a fair way past the hole. I was on the fringe, for four. I took a putting stance with my seven iron. I remembered someone suggesting this in a golf forum on the Internet.
"May as well try it," I thought. Pushing my hands forward and keeping my wrists out of the shot I rocked from the shoulders and knocked the ball forward. It cleared the remaining fringe and ran on towards the hole, leaving a tap in for a six.
"Great chip," Said Charlie "Will you tend for me"
"Sure" I said
After what seemed an eternity, with him examining every contour from every position around the hole, Charlie stood over his putt. He then sighed and moved away.
"There's a turd on my line" He said ....
"Oh I'm sorry" I replied moving a yard to the side. We both laughed as he scooped the duck muck into the pond with the back of his putter. Then he took his shot. The putt rolled on rails all the way into the hole and he whooped with delight, causing all duck squadrons to become airborne. He grinned as he bent to retrieve his Titleist from the hole. He put his fingers into the cup then suddenly shot back electrically and whooped again."What's up?" I said
"I've been stung" He replied.
