Play Golf Vicariously

Have you ever wanted to let somebody know you were thinking of him? I frequently do. Recently I looked at the weather of my home state, Minnesota, on the Weather Channel. They were having a raging blizzard with a forecast of high winds and sub-zero temperatures for the high temperature the following day. It was so bad in Minneapolis that the weight of the snow collapsed the roof of the professional football stadium.

Currently living in the Southeast, I was experiencing fairly temperate weather at the time. As a side note, I invite a group of the Midwest gents down in February every year for a week of golf. The below is a close example of the email that I sent to the group to let them know how badly I felt about their current plight and to also whet their appetites for the February event:

So there I was at my computer this afternoon putting a few touches on my various websites, listing most of them on another composite site, shaking my head in disgust at my personal website (and refusing to deal with it), and doing some really wicked things promoting all of this mess when I found my eyes had crossed. I figured I could easily cure that malady with 12 ounces of elixir and some football.

Well, the 12 ounces went fine, but the football was lacking. Seems like the Minnesota Vikings stadium had some sort of mechanical problem, postponing the game. I glanced outside and witnessed a dearth of golfers on the course. This set the wheels in motion. There were three birds that I could knock off with one stone:

1. I figure that the golf season is almost at an end for those of you in the Midwest and if I could give you a play by play, you could vicariously play nine holes with me.

2. I could get my eyes uncrossed.

3. I could try out a new way to grip the club that I had recently read about.

On the flip side, it was frighteningly cold outside, just under 60 degrees. Additionally, the wind was howling at a horrendous pace of 25 MPH. Most of you don’t understand winds that strong. Trust me, you can barely stand upright. Good news was that the greens had about a tenth inch of rain from the morning so should hold my incoming darts.

Tossing all of the above in a hat, I drew out the answer: I would grab my bag and stroll nine holes. There was still an hour of sunlight left. I succeeded in surmounting the final obstacle – Pain. I mentally overcame the throbbing pain in my right wrist, tendonitis in right elbow, arthritis in right shoulder, chronic lower back pain, grinding in right knee and both questionable Achilles. I had fleeting second thoughts as I feebly tried to tie my shoes with these arthritic fingers.

Once on the course, all was well until I took the first swing. Turns out that I only remembered about 25% of the guidance about the new grip techniques and I was too thick headed to give up trying it throughout the nine holes. Secondly, I was overdressed. You know me. My uniform of choice seven days a week is a t-shirt and dirty blue jeans. Being too lazy to change in case somebody that cared spotted me trespassing without a tee time, I just covered up with a rain suit. BIG mistake as I had to peel the sweat soaked clothes off upon return and am currently trying to cool back down.

I started out by tossing about 20 used, but pre-certified, balls that I had previously gleaned from my back yard in my bag. Turns out that one can really feel the weight difference in 13 balls. Yes, 13 disappeared over the course of the nine holes, but I managed to keep 7 of them from finding their way into the “lost” category. I used to think that the supply of balls I found in my backyard was inexhaustible, but it won’t take long before I will have to visit Top-Flite City at WalMart if I keep this up. The provided golf card was deficient in that the squares for the hole scores don’t accommodate double digits very well so I just went to marking hole scores with a single digit and an additional mark to signify I had to add 10 to that score later.

So there you go. That was about me trying to make you feel better because you were probably watching football today instead of doing yard work, golfing or shooting hoops at the playground. I was also wondering if you care to join me for a week of wonderful golf in a couple months. As you can tell, I won’t be any competition due to failing body parts and you can easily take all the money in bets from me that you want.