Reverend Pullhook

Brother Phil and I were out playing golf the other day…

Actually, to be more honest, we were just losing golf balls in some of the worst conditions we’ve ever played in. It was one of those courses that we all have in whatever town we live in.

The fairways aren’t fair...
The greens aren’t green...
And the hazards could scare the ever-living hell out of the local Civil Defense guys.

The guy who designed the course made the best of the situation, or was a direct descendant of Snidely Whiplash. Pick the most incredulous idea for where a hole ((and a hole location, for that matter)) should be- it’s there. This guy woke up on the wrong side of the planet and decided that his course design would resemble what the mind of a 4-year-old would make playing in a sandbox in his back yard.

Whomever felt compelled to call themselves “Greenskeeper” was an abject failure. There were sand traps on multiple greens, and divots that hadn’t been replaced on the same greens that had the bunkers on the other half. A putt could be heading for the hole for one of those rare pars either one of us had on the day, and the damn thing would take a right turn that would bring a red mark from any Driver Ed. Instructor.

But we’ve all been there...

You Sure This Is A Par-61...???

It’s not what the course did to you. It’s what you did on the course.

They call these kind of courses - “Executive.”

I call them “Executions.”

Even if there were transformers buzzing all kinds of electrical energy over your head. And, yes, they could reach out at any wayward moment and grab a ball you misplayed and shock the hell out of it. There was foam in the retention pond on the 2nd Hole- right next to the perpetual goose toilet for a tee box.

The sign, very wisely, pointed out there was to be no swimming or fishing. What it didn’t tell you was that the birthplace for the “Simpsons” three-eyed fish was what you were walking around.

The 8th Hole is, probably, best described as golf’s version of Chinese Handcuffs. The tee box was 208 yards away from pay dirt. Trees cover the cart path on the left. A ditch is under the trees that flank the right side of the chasm- right up to the green. Good luck with your long iron ((or in Phil’s case, a 3-wood that destroyed a few tree limbs as the ball disappeared into the afternoon)).

Balls dropped into hamstring-high rough - never to be found.
And the woods were laughing at their ill-swung gains...
But I took a leak in the woods on the 11th tee box.

We were even...

dot...dot...dot...

By the time we got to 16, my game was so bad, I couldn’t help but curse at myself for how bad I had become. Pull-hooks that never existed had emerged from some kind of anxiety closet that I couldn’t barricade with billy-clubbed cops.

So, I got a wild hair...

I teed up a ball ((initially a swoosh-brand, but Phil swapped out a crapper)) on the back of the green and wanted my shot at the electrical power station on top of the other mountain.

“Dude, there’s no way you’ll get it there,” Phil convinced me.

That didn’t keep me from taking my shot.

“I’m aiming for the shed in the front,” thinking that somewhere my driver would make up for all the bad ideas that ran through my hands for the last three hours.

He was right...

Reverend Pullhook and his chorus of perpetual laughter in four-part harmony drove something low and right a good 100 yards short of the target born in a moment of poorly-thought out machismo.

“You can hit it out there, but not that ‘out there.’”

Thanks for the reminder...

The lesson came on 18...

A 162-yard par three that was fairly straight, had bunkers on the right side of the green, and divots on the left side of the green. I pulled out an 8-iron.

And the Right Reverend was out to lunch...

12 feet for birdie and an easy tap in for par...

It’s holes like that that give you that sense of accomplishment. You’ve conquered someone else’s ideas of geography and geometry.

Snidely Whiplash be damned... Phil and I will be back...

Just not with our lunar landers for our next round...

And you will, too... Don’t lie...

Play it safe, everyone... talk to you soon...