If you are familiar with golf, then you understand the pun. If you don't understand: after you put a wicked hit on the ball and it decides to sail towards unsuspecting people, to warn them you yell out, "FORE!"
My husband took me to an narrow par 3 golf course to celebrate my birthday. He also wanted to get me back in the swing of things. (I could go all day with puns, but I'll try to stop.) I haven't golfed in a little over two years and we decided to skip practice on the driving range, so it was a little stressful for me.
For some reason I have a pretty good knack at driving the crap out of the ball. For a girl, I hit pretty darn far. I am not a putter, I just cannot get a handle on soft swings. In my limited experience on golf courses, I usually have to whack the heck out of the ball to get it remotely close to the putting area. Keeping this in mind, we step up to the first hole and my husband tells me to use a 7 iron, I said, "Say what?!"
He started blathering about yardage and it only being par 3; I phased him out because I'm not great with my irons. I love my woods, so I glanced at them longingly and grab my 7. I am strictly a whack it, then attempt at putting the ball into the hole in less than 10 strokes. Yes, I said 10. For today's game I limited myself to 3 tries...nope, still didn't make it.
I walk up, drop my nice bright pink ball down (it's honestly because I can't see the white balls and my husband stole all my fluorescent orange balls). I get ready to swing, take my mandatory deep breathe and whack it. Thankfully there was this 30 foot high net that prevented my horrible shank from sailing into a car window on the busy street next to us.
Well that sucked! I won't even include my putting attempts in this post, because honestly, it's just plain embarrassing. So onto hole 2.
Hubby takes out his 5 wood and walks toward the tee. I got so excited about being able to use my wood, this day was turning around! I pick my 3 wood, give it a quick kiss and skip towards the tee. This is 1 of 2 holes on the entire course that are par 4. Yay! I get a chance to whack the ball, I'm so happy.
Hubby takes his shot and it sails beautifully straight toward that checkered flag, yards down the green. I step up, pink ball in hand, and line up to take my shot. I whacked it...right towards the people putting on hole 1.
I yell, "FORE!" for the first time in my life. Then in slow motion, I see a man and a woman falling to the ground to avoid my badly aimed ball. The woman is screaming and crying as it nearly took off her head, I am horrified.
According to my husband it missed the couple by about 30 feet, and in reality, they only just looked over at me as the ball went flying past them, but I was still horrified. I actually cried, I was so embarrassed.
We move onto hole 3, I have snot running down my face and no tissues to clean up the mess. My husband is horrified because I'm so upset about it, "Honey, I do it all the time, calm down!"
Holes 3 through 8, I manage to find my swing and do rather well. Putting....I just give up on at this point, I'm so bad. Oh! On hole 8, I almost hit some ducks...pretty much right after saying to my husband, "if I hit a damn duck, I quit!" Fortunately, my shank saved their lives. Why on earth would you live on or near a golf course?
On hole 9, we are waiting for the group ahead of us to finish putting, so I am pretending to eye up my shot. I hear this "CRACK" and a ball manages to drop behind me about 9 feet. Um...where did that come from? As it turns out the dude I almost shot the ball at near the 2nd hole is trying to make it even, karma, who knew?!
We watch as the couple behind us takes about 4 shots to get near the green for their hole. I'm pretty sure you get one try, but hey, they have the range to knock out a few of my teeth, so I'm not going to argue.
FINALLY, the people ahead of us move along and I line up my shot. It was downhill and curved to the right, so even with my shanking ability, I relaxed a little. Bad idea. I managed to get enough distance and curve on the stupid thing to send it sailing right towards....you guessed it, the couple behind us. Well crap, now I'm one up on the karmic screw you meter. The hubby lines up his shot, it looked and sounded great until it suddenly curved towards the right. Evidently he decided that his karmic scale needed adjusting too.
Shoulders slumped, we get into our golf cart and drive towards the balls. We exchange a laugh and some pleasantries with the couple as we pass on the path. Upon finding our balls, we discover my ball landed about 3 feet from the lady taking her shot, and hubby's ball tried to take out their golf cart. By this point I am pretty rattled at my near misses with killing people and ducks.
Next couple of holes have houses directly on the course...on the right hand side. I told hubby that I wasn't going to be responsible for breaking some person's window, karma was not on my side today. For the next couple of holes, I pretended to be his chauffeur, until I convinced him that I was starving and would live no longer.
So golfing is not really my thing, when accuracy is required in order to not kill people or destroy property. I'll stick to golfing on military bases, nothing but open space there!
To make up for my near involuntary manslaughter charges, hubby took me and the family out to dinner and most importantly...wine tasting at San Pasqual Winery! I am a firm believer in drowning my embarrassment in a glass of wine or three. Important note here: I HATE being sang to in restaurants, absolutely loathe it.
As I tried to enjoy my salted caramel chocolate cake with a glass of port, hubby gets Little Dude and Princess to sing "Happy Birthday" to me. It was sweet...until the other 20-30 people joined in that were also wine tasting.
The laughable part came when the others didn't know who they were wishing Happy Birthday to, so there was a pause. The kiddos sang, "to Mommy!" then the 20-30 other people joined in, "to Mommy!" and continued on. My face turned beet red and I actually enjoyed myself!
All-in-all, it was a pretty good 34th birthday! Thank you to my immediate family and to the "kids" I now have at the San Pasqual Winery.
No comments:
Post a Comment