Two Words: Ninety Four

I shot a 94 today!!! Woohoo!!! That is a personal best. I didn’t think this would happen today but it did. It was a perfect spring day, a sunny blue-sky day, with highs in the mid 70s and winds in the 5-10 mph range. I had a 12:04pm tee time at the same course I played last week. There were four of us this time – me, Seri, Bea, and a woman I’ll call Debbie Harry because she’s an older blonde with wavy, sun-bleached hair.

I shared a cart with Debbie Harry, and since she’s a native English speaker like me, I felt free to be chatty. I think I was a little too chatty, though. Debbie is a beginner, and when I saw her struggling on the first hole, I felt compelled to let unsolicited advice bubble forth from my mouth, like magma oozing from a volcano.

I told her to keep her feet closer together and let her arms hand straight down. After she took a practice swing, I said she should try and keep her left arm straight. When I heard her audibly sigh, I caught myself, and said “Okay, enough. I won’t say another word.” Suddenly, I realized why my husband always tried to give me advice when I was first learning golf. I think he really was just trying to help. But golf is an agony that must be suffered alone, so I zipped my lips.

Debbie Harry confessed she’d never heard the left arm straight thing and she’d work on that. For the rest of the round, we chitchatted about other things. And I focused on my own game.

On the front nine, my longer drives allowed me to make greens in regulation. I only three-putted twice and scored a 43, an all-time low for me. I told Seri and Bea that maybe I should ride a cart more often because it seems to conserve energy that I can use for playing.

On the back nine, things were going along in a similar fashion, but on the 14^th hole, I suddenly had this feeling that I was missing a club. Although it turned out that I had just returned a club to a different slot in my bag, this wondering about missing clubs prompted Debbie Harry to count her clubs and she realized that she was, in fact, missing a club. Somewhere after the turn, she had forgotten her wedge.

After we teed off on 14, she decided to take the cart and go look for her club. Uncertain which club to use for my second shot, I took my 7-wood, 7-utility, and putter out of my golf bag. I also grabbed my purse, not because I didn’t trust Debbie Harry with it, but because I lived in New York for 10 years and always needing to have my purse within eyeshot is a habit I’m simply unable to quit. (In church, I even take my purse with me to the communion line.)

Even with these important objects in hand, I instantly regretted not bringing along my scorecard too. Because I had shot a record-low 43 on the front half, that scorecard had already become a sentimental treasure to me. Something I would put in a scrapbook (if I had time to scrapbook). I pictured my scorecard clipped precariously to the steering wheel of the cart as Debbie Harry drove away with it. One stiff breeze and that scorecard would be gone with the wind.

Anyway, there I was dragging 3 golf clubs and my Lesportsac handbag along the fairway, hoping that Debbie Harry would find her club pronto and be back in a jif. I took my second shot, which landed in a bunker near the green. Once there, I realized I did not have a sand wedge. Luckily, Bea offered to lend me hers. I noticed that she had a label on her grip, saying “Thumb to the right.” That is so cute, I thought, picturing her typing out little reminders with her P-touch like a Martha Stewart of golf.

After I got out of the sand and landed on the green, I two-putted and scored a bogey on that hole. Debbie Harry finally returned by then, but she still hadn’t found her club. I suggested calling the pro shop since whoever found it would probably send it over to the lost-and-found. She called them, and sure enough, they had her wedge.

And I had my scorecard back in sight. On the 15^th hole, I was feeling the pressure to perform, and an off-center drive resulted in my ball landing in some scraggly dirt patch under some trees. It was a terrible, uneven lie, but I gave it a quick punch. The ball moved a few feet to another scraggly dirt patch, and I pounded it out into the fairway. From there, I took a hard whack with my 7-utility, hoping to make it onto the green. Instead, it missed left and landed in some mulchy groundcover on a hill. It took another two shots to get out of there. Then I three-putted. Total for that hole was 9.

Things were not looking great, but I held it together and shot bogey and par on the next two holes. On the 18^th hole, I teed off and hit a tree. I thought the ball shot through the branches and would be findable among the dried winter leaves littering the fairway. Once I got there, I could not locate my ball. Seri said she thought it went out of bounds, through the chain-link fence. I saw the group behind us was waiting at the tee ground, so I gave up the search and took a drop below the tree my ball had hit. It took me 8 strokes to hole out, including two self-imposed penalty strokes for losing my ball.

Later, I found out that two strokes was an appropriate penalty, since I should have actually gone back and teed off again, according to Rule 27-1 of the Rules of Golf. If I had followed the rule, the penalty would have been one stroke. Since I breached this rule, the penalty is two strokes. I think this will teach me to always hit a provisional ball if I’m ever in doubt about finding my tee shot.

In the end, I shot a hard-won 94. It could have been worse. But it turned out to be a personal best. Definitely one for the scrapbook.