A Warm Winter Day

It’s cold. It’s February and it’s supposed to be cold, but somehow it just seems colder than it should be. When it’s this cold, I usually do one of two things: 1) compare the current climate to my visit to the Arctic Circle, when I braved a night in sub-zero temperatures at a hotel made of ice, and I say, “This ain’t that cold.” Or 2) remember a warmer time.

I don’t have to think back too far to a warmer time. It was just about two weeks ago, on a Wednesday, when the forecast said sunny and low 50s. I called upon Bea and Dodi for a twilight round. Thank god for them, my fellow golf addicts, who will either work doubly hard to make time for golf, or skip out on work altogether. In Bea’s case, I had called her just as she was arriving at work, and she promptly told her boss she was taking the day off. Good thing her boss is also her husband.

Dodi and I walked, and Bea rode, despite her new year’s resolutions to start walking this year. She had recently purchased a Ping G20 driver, just like mine except hers was senior flex (or, as Ping euphemistically calls it, “soft regular” flex, which I think just sounds like an adjective for something else, after eating a lot of fiber). I told her she should have gone with the regular flex, but her fitter had convinced her otherwise. Still, I was flattered that she purchased the same driver as me. It meant she, too, had noticed that I was getting better distance off the tee.

None of us had played for weeks before that day, and none of us kept score. I was just glad to be outdoors and not at the gym for a workout. I played horribly except for a par 5 that I managed to par. But I felt such joy. It was warm. There was a moistness in the air. It felt like a shower in the sun.

On the back nine, things started to slow down. We were keeping pace, but there was a single behind us and Bea asked him to join us. I was a little annoyed that she asked the guy to join us without asking me first, but I know she prefers to play in front of strangers since it makes her perform better. As for me, the new guy broke up the rhythm we had going. It meant one more person to wait for, one more stranger to act polite for. Plus I could tell he thought he was really good. On one hole, Dodi and I hit our approach shots to just inside the edge of the green. We were both happy to land the green, but when the stranger hit his approach to the same area, he cursed himself, as if he’d made a terrible shot. It was kind of a mood killer, like a certain hole I played that day, when I hit my tee shot to the perfect spot, just to the right of a bunker. I had high hopes of making the green in two. But instead my second shot soared temptingly close to the green, then flared off right into a steep bunker. So the round, like that hole, was only half decent. But as a warm memory, it will do.