Adam Sandler’s movie, Happy Gilmore, depicts what a rogue, renegade golfer can do to the dignified sport of golfing. Sunday afternoon, our youngest twin daughter and her husband called and invited my husband and me to go golfing. Between the four of us, I believe approximately three rounds of golf had been played. Novices by anyone’s description!
Planning to stay in my pajamas for a day of rest before a treatment-filled week, at first I declined. Then the beautiful 70 degree temperatures, light breeze and sunshine began to lure my thoughts to the greens. My husband agreed and before I knew it, we were at the golf course.
It took little time before the “Gilmores” kicked into action. Golf balls ricocheted off of trees, but fortunately did not rebound off the heads of other golfers. My daughter and I decided our game philosophy would be to pick the clubs according to our favorite numbers versus what conditions warranted. She and I excelled at driving the golf carts. When our husbands evacuated the carts to swing away, we played cat and mouse games – racing each other around bushes and shrubs – full speed ahead in the carts one direction and then switching directions at the next foliage find. My Dad, a golfer who always took the game seriously, would have been mortified had he joined our funny foursome.
For the life of me, I cannot figure out why hitting that little white ball was so difficult. I entirely missed the ball on several swings. Mom later informed me that Dad said these strokes were called “whiffs” and they should be counted as a stroke. Not in my life – in my book of golf rules, whiffs are considered practice strokes, generous gifts that the golfer presents to herself. On one stroke, as our husbands searched for a golf ball that “somehow” had made its way into a small pond circled by cattails and ornamental grasses, I swung away and hit the golf cart. Laughter does not enhance one’s golf swing. The harder my daughter and I laughed, the more “whiffing” we did.
This morning on the way to the cancer center, Dad was driving, and we were discussing my golf game (doesn't that phrase sound like I am the real deal?) I told him that many of my shots went straight out across the grass, not gently loping through the air like Tiger's shots do. Dad informed me those shots are called "worm burners". I really liked that terminology and could just envision night crawlers tucked away in in the blades of grass, ducking for cover as my accelerating golf ball skimmed across the greens.
For those of you who have watched Happy Gilmore, you might recall the scene where Happy’s caddy was washing his undergarments in the ball washer on the golf course. Before we left home, our daughter called, giggling, and told me to sneak out a pair of my husband’s BVD’s (not DVD’s) and bring them with me. I did not recall this scene from the movie, but obviously she and her husband did. With predictability, we arrived at the sixth hole and there was a ball washer (I am not certain why these are needed – my balls, being whiffed at most of the time, did not become dirty and if they were dirty, they would end up in the ponds and then there was no need for washing). Our daughter, with her eyes twinkling and mischief mounting in her mind, dug into my handbag, eradicated the BVD’s and headed to the ball washer to “plant” them there and reenact the Happy Gilmore travesty.
Tiger Woods would not have appreciated following us around the course, but I believe I have an inner-golfer screaming to be discovered. I told my husband with a few lessons from Dad (who firmly informed me that players like us need to be on driving ranges, not golf courses to learn the game), we could be playing in tournaments! When I e-mailed this photo to our daughter, we both agreed that her swing looks like that of a professional and no one would have believed our antics on the golf course from looking at that photograph. Oh, how looks can be deceiving – very deceiving!
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