Days after Hurricane Lee ravaged south central Pennsylvania in September of 2011; we played The Highlands of Donegal, best described as a links style public course with a reasonable amount of elevation and retention basins/ponds that come into play on ten holes. Highlands was the best option as only a handful of courses were open in the tri-county area.
Tee time was 1:10 on a beautiful Friday afternoon, playing with two workmates and a customer. I was adorned in my white Conestoga Country Club golf shirt, tan shorts and my white FootJoy golf shoes.
Things were going swimmingly until we reached the tee box of the 11th hole, a downhill 348-yard par 4 with two massive retention basins (which were completely full), one guarding the left side at the 150-yard marker and one guarding the right side at approximately the same distance. Driver is risky business, having experienced the bottom of the dry basins in the past.
Flying in the face of danger, without hesitation, I confidently grabbed my driver out of my bag and proceeded to push my drive off to the right, heading for trouble. My playing partners were safely up the left side, shy of the left basin. Wanting to keep play moving and to walk off a little frustration (a common occurrence), I unstrapped my bag from the cart and marched towards the right basin.
As I approached the hazard, my Titleist was precariously resting six inches into the hazard, completely covered by water, clearly visible and potentially playable. After considering a MasterCard (Entertaining clients? Priceless.) moment, I elected to extract said Titleist with my sand wedge, take a penalty stroke and live for another day.
As I crept towards the edge, I reached with my left arm and my sand wedge for my ball however, while doing so, my FootJoy’s slipped out from under me and I began a quick decent into the murky depths of the bottomless basin, simultaneously reaching back with my right arm in an attempt to grab hold of something, anything to stop the fall. Unfortunately, the side of the bank was as clean as a whistle, sans weeds, shrubs or branches. Expecting to be completely immersed in the disgusting filth and swimming for my life, I miraculously stopped some five feet into the decent. Pausing, gathering my wit (singular), I slowly began to crawl out of the basin with my sand wedge securely in my left hand. I reached the top of the bank and assessed the damage. Other than a mud stained white (now brown) golf shirt, a mud stained pair of tan (now brown) shorts, a mud stained pair of saturated white (now mostly brown) golf shoes and a sharp pain in my right shoulder, things were looking up! Meanwhile, my playing partners were still screwing around on the left side of the fairway, completely unaware of my life changing moment.
Moments later, I placed my sand wedge back in my bag, threw my bag over my shoulder and sloshed, step by step to rejoin the fray. Needless to say, I was some sight! My playing partners were barely able to finish the 11th hole as their shirts were soaked with tears of laughter.
Well, I heroically finished the round (gave my client a MasterCard moment after all) and subsequently scheduling surgery for a severely torn rotator cuff.
Just another day in the life of Bad Golf Guy!
If you are enjoying our weekly posts, we’d be eternally grateful if you‘d spread the word. Thank you for following Bad Golf Guy and be sure to follow up on Instagram.
The back nine can only get better!
Leave a Reply