I Suck at Golf

I had one of those rounds the other day, the kind that makes me doubt my skills and wonder why I even play this game. I told my husband about it, explaining how this round made me very emotional and animated to the point where I was “speaking French” quite fluently. Hubby was surprised to hear that I curse on the golf course. I am not sure why he’s surprised, since I have cursed in front of him plenty of times. But I suppose I haven’t had reason to curse much lately, since my game has been improving.

But at last Wednesday’s round with Bea and Seri, I suddenly lost my driver mojo, and this was reason to curse up a storm. On the first hole, I drove my tee shot about 180 yards, but after that, I could not driver past 165. I was walking that day, and I had become so used to having some time to stroll casually to my ball, since it was usually the farthest one ahead, and Seri or Bea, or both, would need to hit their balls before mine. But last Wednesday, I was constantly rushing to go hit my ball, since I was always away.

I told Seri and Bea that I had lost a few pounds and it was throwing off my rhythm. It’s true, I had dropped about four pounds, as part of the seasonal shedding of winter weight that I go through each year. On one hole, Seri watched me pitch a ball about 100 yards with my driver. “That’s not your swing!” she exclaimed, looking at me as if I was possessed by a demon.

Meanwhile, Bea was pounding her driver 200-plus yards up the middle of every fairway. And Seri was striping hers 160 or more every time. Whenever it was my turn to hit driver, I found myself cussing like a sailor. Fortunately, these words had little resonance with Seri and Bea. Like idioms, the potency of curses is often lost in translation. I may as well have been saying “Duuuuck!” or “Gee, that’s nice!”

I know that Seri and Bea curse too, but only because they’ve told me. “Did you know,” Bea once asked me, “there is a Korean word worse than f----?” She actually said the F word like she was saying any other word. But she wouldn’t tell me the Korean curse word. She said if any Korean person heard me say it, they would be really, really shocked.

After she told me that, I went home and asked hubby to look it up on the Internet. So I do know what the word is. And on one of the last holes of the round, I was very tempted to use it. I drove my ball into an uphill fairway, only to watch it dribble back and to the right, into rough filled with loose mulch and pebbles. I knew it would be nearly impossible to hit a decent shot out of that lie. I was so frustrated I raised my arms and shook my driver in the air, growling at the golf gods. But I didn’t sat that Korean word. Instead, I shouted, “Worse than f------!”

Bea knew exactly what I meant.