Mudballs and Flying Geese

Last Wednesday, I played nine holes at deep twilight with my golf buddy JW. She consistently outdrives me by a good 30 to 40 yards, but I love playing with her because she always reminds me that golf is supposed to be fun. When a very large flock of geese crowded the fairway, she didn’t hesitate to join me in doing raucous impressions of dogs, hawks, bears, owls, cows, and other animals we thought might be a natural predator of, and therefore scary to, the aforementioned geese.

Either we suck at doing animal impressions, or these birds were stone deaf. After we gave a few more well-intentioned attempts to shoo them away, we had no choice but to tee off directly into the apathetic flock. I must have hit one, as evidenced by a loud squawk and a sudden fluttering of wings from amid the center of the group.

I felt kind of bad about it, but the bird did not seem any worse for the wear. And except for some mild guilt, I would not incur any penalty for hitting a goose. According to the official rules of golf, if a player’s ball is accidentally stopped or deflected by an outside agency, such as a goose, there is no penalty, but the ball must be played as it lies.

Loitering geese, grazing on fairway grass because the pickings are slim elsewhere, are just one peril of winter golfing. Another hazard is the inevitable mudball.

On Saturday, I played with hubby. It was cloudy and in the low-50s, but the ground was wet and muddy from rain the night before. Sometimes I took up so much mud with a shot, it felt like I was getting a spa treatment. And my mud-encrusted balls flew like satellites out of orbit.

Hubby said there was such a thing as unofficial “winter rules,” where you can do things like clean mud off your ball on the fairway. But I wouldn’t have it. On the putting green, the official rules of golf let you mark and clean your ball, even if it has just a speck of dirt on it. But elsewhere on the course, you pretty much have to play it as it lies.

Besides, I’m stubborn and never want to take relief. I once hit off a cart path because that’s where the ball landed, and I didn’t know you could take relief off of cart paths without penalty. I should probably get more familiar with the official golf rules, but I think playing it “as it lies” is the essence of golf.

Playing it “as it lies” is where the challenge lies. And overcoming challenges is its own reward.

On Saturday, I slogged through muddy grass and chilly wind only to shoot a pitiful 108. But I made it through a full 18, which on such a winter day carried with it a sense of satisfaction. And here was my other reward, a painterly, bluish pink-orange, cloudy sunset kind of sky:

 A picture doesn't do the sunset, or the feeling, justice.