Dreamland

Golf on the Rocks

I’m on a company sponsored golf trip, something they organized to promote teamwork and “employee bonding” (bleh). We all ride on a bus out to this fancy hotel located on a really nice course. We arrive, check into our rooms, then go to the hotel restaurant to grab something to eat.

I have lunch with one of the guys from work, and then we decide to see if we can get onto the course this afternoon to get some practice. The guy in charge says that there are no openings, the course is booked solid for the next three months. We won’t be able to get on the course before our tournament tomorrow. He says we can go out in the field behind the parking lot and hit some balls, if we want.

We go to get our clubs. I’m not happy. The bus driver unloaded all of the clubs for our group, and threw them in a heap in the corner of the clubhouse. I pick up my bag; the clubs are ruined! The grips look like a large carnivorous animal has chewed them, and some of the shafts on the irons are dented and bent. I get a roll of electrical tape from one of the hotel maintenance guys, and try to repair the grips on the few clubs that look like they still might be serviceable; I’ll have to make do with them.

We walk out to the back lot. Someone has set up a few practice holes on the sandy ground, with rocks for tees and sticks with plastic bags for pins. We tee off the first hole, we decide to call it a par 3. My shot isn’t too good; the ball only goes about halfway there, and lands in the weeds next to an old fence. My partner has better luck, getting about twenty feet away from the pin.

My second shot hooks way left, and ends up on top of a rocky ledge that runs along the shore (we’re next to the ocean). My partner goes up and chips his second shot to within two feet of the pin, making par. (Since there is no green, we’re playing: get within three feet, the next shot’s a gimme.) I’m at two strokes, about fifty yards from the pin, with my ball sitting in a little dip on top of this crunchy white coral type of rock. My odds don’t look good of making par on this hole.

My first reaction is to move the ball so I don’t scratch my club; but since it’s already ruined anyway, it doesn’t matter. I line up and hit the ball, blasting a couple chunks of rock along with it. It’s a perfect shot; the ball rolls up and taps the pin, stopping inches away. I walk up to retrieve it. I wonder what kind of hazards the next hole has in store?