The Cosmic Rules of Golf
It was brought to my attention by John, my golfing buddy, that some people that read my last blog might not know what I was talking about when I used golf terminology. So, if any of you four people out there who read my blog didn’t understand the phrases…I plan to clean up some of the mysteries.
First, about the magic tee. I realize that I didn’t mention it much in the last post….it’s a sensitive subject. You see, I painstakingly spent countless hours carving that wooden tee myself out of a slightly bigger tee that I found beside the lightening-struck trunk of a tree on the twelfth day of the twelfth month after the second full moon of the winter solstice that followed the day that John Lennon was shot. I was two years old. I named it Wonder Bo. I had no room for the Y.
That tee lasted twenty-six drives (not counting the mulligan) before it succumbed to the pressure and broke. It was my good luck charm. I hit many drives off that tee that were…well they weren’t great drives. I fact, I think I only hit three straight drive with that tee! The rest were forest-bound. When I come to think of it…that tee sucked. I didn’t hit a decent shot with that tee. It was an albatross around my neck that I am now free of. I should be happy it broke. Fuck that tee! Stupid no good…..
Okay. Now to the cosmic rules that seem to apply to most amateur golfers and weekend warriors.
1) No matter how bad you think you are and how slow you think you are going, if you let another group pass you then they will inevitably be the worst players to walk onto a fairway wearing sleeveless shirts, Jesus sandals, and toting a six pack of Milwaukee’s Best. You will spend the rest of the game cursing them for their slowness and waiting for one to pull out a deer rifle and take pot shots at the wildlife reserve next door.
2) You will get a slow cart. No matter how fast it seems when you are zipping around the parking lot, it will immediately lose all thrust and will to live when it is time to crest even the most modest of hills. Brakes can also never be trusted. Either you are pushing it all the way down until parking brake catches just in time to leave you four feet past your mark, or they will be so touchy that just by thinking of possibly braking will lock up its wheels and cause your partner to eat the safety plastic windshield. *Note: If you do get a good cart that has sufficient power to help you get up a hill without resorting to Fred Flintstone-like pushing with your feet and has a sane brake pedal that allows you to gently come to rest at your destination, then be prepared to walk across the entire course when your tire goes flat at the second green.
3) Any right slice will go into the trees. Even if there are no trees present on the right of you. Just start looking in the nearest crop of birch for your ball if it hangs a right off the tee. If it goes left then just pull out another ball. Yours has just been donated to the Mordor Country Club. It’s gone. Even when you hit a ball that you know (deep down in the knowing place where you keep your knowings) that it hit the edge of the fairway, you will get to the spot where you saw it drop and find three balls that are not yours and inadvertently prove the existence of worm holes in the space-time continuum when you notice that one of them is a Callaway 3000 XPG Plasma Core.
4) Never attempt to reclaim your ball from a squirrel. They have been genetically altered after generations of eating nuts that have been plucked from the well manicured (and densely chemicaled) lawn to be vicious and territorial. I once saw a human skeleton floating in one of the ponds that had over a thousand peculiar gnaw marks in it. But its hand was still clutching a Titleist ball. I took it.
5) Never walk into a clubhouse and ask the thirty half-drunk redneck golfers that are in there if anyone has a wood you can borrow. You’ll see thirty-two teeth flash in your direction, the banjos will come out, and your day will be cut short by you having to leave and drive very fast away from the golf course.
By knowing these Cosmic Rules you will have a less stressful day on the links because you will learn to not worry about lost balls, to look the other way when the drunk guy in front of you relieves himself on the nearest tree, and to engage the parking brake of your cart eight to ten feet from the point where you actually want to stop.
Good luck.
Magic tee my ass…
First, about the magic tee. I realize that I didn’t mention it much in the last post….it’s a sensitive subject. You see, I painstakingly spent countless hours carving that wooden tee myself out of a slightly bigger tee that I found beside the lightening-struck trunk of a tree on the twelfth day of the twelfth month after the second full moon of the winter solstice that followed the day that John Lennon was shot. I was two years old. I named it Wonder Bo. I had no room for the Y.
That tee lasted twenty-six drives (not counting the mulligan) before it succumbed to the pressure and broke. It was my good luck charm. I hit many drives off that tee that were…well they weren’t great drives. I fact, I think I only hit three straight drive with that tee! The rest were forest-bound. When I come to think of it…that tee sucked. I didn’t hit a decent shot with that tee. It was an albatross around my neck that I am now free of. I should be happy it broke. Fuck that tee! Stupid no good…..
Okay. Now to the cosmic rules that seem to apply to most amateur golfers and weekend warriors.
1) No matter how bad you think you are and how slow you think you are going, if you let another group pass you then they will inevitably be the worst players to walk onto a fairway wearing sleeveless shirts, Jesus sandals, and toting a six pack of Milwaukee’s Best. You will spend the rest of the game cursing them for their slowness and waiting for one to pull out a deer rifle and take pot shots at the wildlife reserve next door.
2) You will get a slow cart. No matter how fast it seems when you are zipping around the parking lot, it will immediately lose all thrust and will to live when it is time to crest even the most modest of hills. Brakes can also never be trusted. Either you are pushing it all the way down until parking brake catches just in time to leave you four feet past your mark, or they will be so touchy that just by thinking of possibly braking will lock up its wheels and cause your partner to eat the safety plastic windshield. *Note: If you do get a good cart that has sufficient power to help you get up a hill without resorting to Fred Flintstone-like pushing with your feet and has a sane brake pedal that allows you to gently come to rest at your destination, then be prepared to walk across the entire course when your tire goes flat at the second green.
3) Any right slice will go into the trees. Even if there are no trees present on the right of you. Just start looking in the nearest crop of birch for your ball if it hangs a right off the tee. If it goes left then just pull out another ball. Yours has just been donated to the Mordor Country Club. It’s gone. Even when you hit a ball that you know (deep down in the knowing place where you keep your knowings) that it hit the edge of the fairway, you will get to the spot where you saw it drop and find three balls that are not yours and inadvertently prove the existence of worm holes in the space-time continuum when you notice that one of them is a Callaway 3000 XPG Plasma Core.
4) Never attempt to reclaim your ball from a squirrel. They have been genetically altered after generations of eating nuts that have been plucked from the well manicured (and densely chemicaled) lawn to be vicious and territorial. I once saw a human skeleton floating in one of the ponds that had over a thousand peculiar gnaw marks in it. But its hand was still clutching a Titleist ball. I took it.
5) Never walk into a clubhouse and ask the thirty half-drunk redneck golfers that are in there if anyone has a wood you can borrow. You’ll see thirty-two teeth flash in your direction, the banjos will come out, and your day will be cut short by you having to leave and drive very fast away from the golf course.
By knowing these Cosmic Rules you will have a less stressful day on the links because you will learn to not worry about lost balls, to look the other way when the drunk guy in front of you relieves himself on the nearest tree, and to engage the parking brake of your cart eight to ten feet from the point where you actually want to stop.
Good luck.
Magic tee my ass…
posted by Burning Stickman at 8:02 PM
1 Comments:
Wonderful post, and almost completely applicable to putt-putt golf as well...
I have to admit that anyone that can reference The Natural, LOTR, Star Trek and Deliverance in a running golf list gets an extra shot for free in my book. No mulligans though, unless its the beer.
And where was the Dune reference? Come on! it's golf... sand... the worm is the spice???
I keep waiting for the Frat Pack (the Wilsons, Vince V., Stiller and the ever so lovely Ferrell) to do an Old School meets golfing film. They've done the catwalk, the sad childish world of professional dodge ball... why not an outrageously funny take on golf without Tim Conway. And no, Caddyshack doesn't count.
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