I think I can call this Eavesdropping while golfing the executive nine. I’m with three women of a regular group of about fifteen to twenty golfers playing the game of the day called Fairway Floozie. According to our fearless leader and organizer of these women, we get five points if we hit the fairway and then points are taken away based on the number of putts and that gives us the points for that hole. A woman hands me the card for keeping track. I duff my shot; don’t make the fairway. One woman has an incredible drive. I chip in for a birdie. A rare occurrence. It does not happen again in this game.
We enjoy birdie juice while waiting for next green to clear. This time three of the four women hit the fairway. The next hole, one of the women hit what some people call the canyon while another had what we celebrated as the drive of the day. The first woman hit her pink ball out of the ditch and saved par. Our fourth hole had one woman trying for drive of the day as her ball brushed the trees on the left and bounced down the par five cart path.
We crossed the road and right off the tee, a house was hit and it sounded like more than once. No glass broken. I was happy with my drive and was on this green in two with no double bogies to date. The woman who was not house hunting but found one anyway, dropped a ball and found her next shot near a sand trap. As she was setting up; from the other side of the green I see her walking golf cart with all her golf clubs on it; start to move. As she makes the chip, the cart is moving; is now on a slant, then begins to tip, straightens up, then begins to roll; making a final descent down the slope into the sand bunker and over it goes.
We all commiserate. I am marking the points; as another is helping rescue the cart and a third is raking the sand bunker. I am not eavesdropping but do hear a bad four-letter word. I thought she showed considerable restraint as it started with an S and she had just realized that her sun umbrella was broken.
We move on. One out of four of us have balls on the fairway, and as we are leaving the green, a ball from the group behind sails right by me. I look back; recognize the long hitter who later tells me she skulled it. I will be letting her know it actually went by us by forty yards and I did not hear a fore. I think golf etiquette is out the window.
Hole seven was relatively uneventful; except for the woman’s ball that headed left towards the houses but came short of the wall. She did say it went exactly where she aimed as she was compensating for all the previous drives that had gone right. We did have good shots on hole eight but the one who was in line to win money for getting the drive on the fairway was in the sand. Several tries to get out were unsuccessful so the hand wedge had the ball on the green. Wouldn’t you know it; the ball was a sizeable distance from the hole. She put it down with one stroke and we celebrated the long putt of the day.
Hole nine is a long hole. Everyone was on the fairway except me. I was in the sand. We know by this time we are probably not in the money. We each put $ 1.00 in to play this fairway floozie game. I won once and $6.50 is very, very exciting to win. We were all on the green ready to putt as the marshal drives up. I putt first and drop it in the hole. It was a considerable distance but not for putt of the day. The other three do the same. Their first putt goes down as well so glee all around. The marshal is impressed and says so. He gives us a round of applause and each an animal cracker.
Hugs and good-byes. I hand in the card with points of 15,12, 10 and 9 with the faintest hope one of us may win as there is a first and second place winner. We find out later the winners were 26 and 22. Not even a chance BUT none of them received animal crackers.
I walk home happy with my thirty-nine and think “what a weird game”, but how much I love the fun and connection with these friends. I do look forward to next week’s game.
February 27, 2017
ellensagh 