Friend’s Friend

The old adage suggests that the best jokes are usually about one’s self and I would like to think, based on my shared self-deprecating personal golf experiences, I subscribe to the adage.

I am, for a moment, going to gravitate away (just for a brief moment) from my game and my personal calamities to share a story about a fellow unnamed golfer who’s play was significantly better than mine for two straight days.

It was a beautiful Friday afternoon in Sarasota, Florida, playing with my brother, his friend and his friend’s friend. We were having a delightful time, all of us more interested in the fraternal component of the game and no one taking themselves particularly seriously.

My brother’s friend’s friend had been pounding it off the tee box the entire round and the par five, fourteenth-hole was no exception. He followed his drive with a beautifully executed second shot, leaving a 50-60 yard pitch to the guarded green (bunkers front and back, water lining the entire right side of the fairway, through the green).  The friend’s friend found himself on the left side of the fairway.  Directly to the left of the friend’s friend ball was a cart path that ran up the entire left side of the fairway and to the left of the cart path is a waste area, affectionately referred to by my brother as “ka-ka”.

The friend’s friend confidently approached his short third shot to the green.  He proceeded to pull the trigger, the ball coming off the face of the club and inexplicably, coming off of the face of the club once again, flying miraculously over his head, hitting the cart path and bounding into said “ka-ka”.

Pause.  Let’s review for a moment!  Laying two, hitting three, double-hit four, penalty stroke five, now playing his sixth, still 50-60 yards out from the guarded green. Yada, yada, yada, call it a nine or ten.

The friend’s friend was the picture of grace and good humor throughout the event, laughing at himself, shaking his head, taking a mild dose of ribbing with absolute class.  As a good golfing buddy often says, “You just can’t make this stuff up!”

Note 1:

As documented in Bad Golf Guys July 2018 post (Rules of Golf, Part 3), the Rules of Golf will be modified in 2019, in part, eliminating the penalty for a double hit.  As mentioned in the post, conventional wisdom suggests a player does not benefit from a double hit so why should the Rules make life more miserable?

Note 2:

On the following day, playing the short par four, third-hole, I had a six-iron into the green from the far left side of the fairway, the ball barely in play, and the entire left side of the hole guarded by brush and water.  I hit my shot, the ball barely making it off the ground, scampering into a bunker to the right side of the green.  Simultaneously, the head of my six-iron flew off the shaft dead left, landing in the murky depths, never to be seen or heard from again.  Fabulous.

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The back nine can only get better!