Wasted Opportunity ? No Such Thing

Don Grose
Another club championship comes and goes...one more
time I failed to mysteriously ascend from the depths
of mediocrity..one more time, somehow, I shot my
handicap and...at first glance spent another two days
on golf course, making the same predictable mistakes,
at the same predictable spots, with the same predictable results. Hmmmm...Just another wasted
opportunity. Au Contraire !!! One of the big attractions to playing in these club events is that
you get the chance to play with people you might
otherwise only meet in passing..say "hi" to on the
practise tee or practise green, or when you launch
an ill-fated tee shot onto their fairway instead of
yours...Saturday, the first day of the event I played
with Dwight Isenor and Dave Power...We all had our
issues but they were great company...and it was a better golf season having had the chance to spend
five hours in their company...Sunday I played with
Mel Ritcey and Jeff Burrell - an equally enjoyable
day in the sun..now these are four guys I wouldn't
normally get to play with - and that is what Club
Championships are all about for the vast majority of
us...There are those who magically come up with a
career best round during events such as these - very
few manage to put two of them together - they are left with the " what ifs..." The competition is fun..it's
engaging...the chance to compare your game to the
game of others at similar skill levels adds an
element..but at the end of the day..win or lose -
we all have to report for work on Monday, our wives still love us, and the dog doesn't bite us when we
get home...and when they write the history of the
world - our successes or failures on the golf course
will likely take up no more than paragraph or two.
I do have to share one little story..and this will
likely make the Golf Shop the week after next..
At one point in our game Sunday Mel hit a drive and
pulled it badly left into some trees. We all expected
find the ball without any problem but wheh it's hot and
your playing your second five hour round in two days
the last thing you want is to have to walk back to the
tee to hit another ball should you not be able to
track the ball down...so Mel teed up a provisional -
He hit maybe his best drive of the day...beautiful,
long, high draw down the right side...it hit the right side of the fairway and kicked dead into the middle.
Mel turned to Jeff and I and said, " Yesterday, I hit
three of the nicest provisionals I've ever hit..."
We chuckled...
I wonder what percentage of golfers since Tiger's victory at the Open have started working on the
"stinger." How many golfers are now starting to take
an extra club and "knock it down ?" You could be working on worse things..
Gotta go...back soon.
Til next time - hittem long and hittem straight.
Don