43° and Patchy rain nearby
Image
It has always been a pleasure to play golf. There are very few sports that allow you to meet different people every week to converse and compete with. Baseball, basketball, football, soccer are team sports with a certain number of players but golf allows you to play with different players every week, if you so chose. I have been doing this for over 40 years. You get to talk to and play with doctors, plumbers, business owners, accountants, masons, cooks, nurses, teachers, lawyers and on and on. We are all trying to hit this little ball into a little hole in the least amount of stokes. Some players move the ball a little, some say they have a 5 instead of a 6 on a particular hole, some say do over, some yell and curse, some are silent the entire time. It is true, you can tell a lot about a person when you play golf with them. The charm of golf is, when it is all said and done. When the good, bad or indifferent round is over, you still are friends and end the day with a drink or two. I wish we were all a little more like that. But there is a not so appealing aspect of golf. It is that you get to see your athletic prowess diminish in real time. Every few years, you get to see those 250 yd. + drives of your youth slowly descend. Yes, you buy new state of the art equipment, like new `hair thickening shampoo`, to boost your performance but inevitably, unless you have enough money to give yourself a complete overhaul, Mother Nature catches up with you. So, while out on the golf course recently I hit, what I thought was a solid drive off the tee around 225 yards straight down the middle. I noticed while approaching my, well struck, straight down the middle golf ball that one of the players in my foursome, a friend of mine, hit his ball very close to mine. Feeling like a `true golfer` with that drive, I approached my next shot with my chest out. Suddenly, to my surprise, my friend looked at me and said,` We hit those drives 175 yards.` WHAT!!! 175 yards, that was impossible. I hit that ball as hard as I could. Unfortunately, he was right. It went only 175yds!!! Yes, I used to have all my hair. Yes, I used to jog to keep in shape. Yes, I used to stay up until mid-night but no more. The golf ball went 175 yards!!! Well, the ball went straight, the grass is still below my feet, I am still breathing fresh air. Let’s see what the next shot will bring me. JG
