Tongue-In-Cheek … Foot-In-Mouth

Anyone who tells you playing a round of golf is relaxing needs to have their putter examined.  Not for nothing, but attempting to sink a stupid ball into a stupid hole located on a stupid green is STUPID, and NOT at all relaxing unless, of course, you consider something that causes you to hurl your brand new expensive golf clubs one-by-one into the nearest water hazard followed by you ripping out the last remaining strand of your hair on your head, which you CANNOT aford, as being relaxing.

But, admittedly, there is a certain entertainment value to this sport.  Maybe it’s the way fully grown adults drop to their hands and knees and promise the little white dimpled ball absolutely anything, including marriage, if it goes into a hole.

Or perhaps it’s the method by which golfers, in a telepathic attempt to steer the ball into the hole, will violently twist and turn their bodies in a manner not unlike someone suffering from a severe case of ants in the pants.

Or possibly it’s all the genuflecting and praying that the ball will avoid the sand, water, trees, ruff, and those (nasty word) spectators who have the nasty habit of placing their heads in the direct path of the oncoming ball.

EXAMPLE

“FOUR!  Oh, please, please, please!” (genuflect)

CLUNK!

“OUCH!”

“Gee, swell, jerk!  Thanks for screwing up my shot!  Like my handicap isn’t high enough!  Now, if you don’t mind, can you NOT bleed on the fairway!?”

And what about the wheelbarrows full of dough that’s dished out to the winner for playing one round of golf?  What other sport pays out this kind of cash? Huh?  Yeah, oh sure, a real sport like, for example, football pays out big bucks; however, coming off the gridiron with one’s head still firmly attached to one’s shoulders isn’t always guaranteed.

Look, football is played in every sort of weather situation imaginable, to include meteor showers.  But in golf if one raindrop is detected, everyone including the golf balls hike up their pants, scream, and make a beeline for the clubhouse.

Football is also loud and violent.  And it is encouraged, by which I mean manditory, that fans to be loud and violent, because if they are not loud and violent the annoying mascot will come over and annoy them until they become loud and violent.

But golf is such a danty Emily Post polite sport that no noises are tolerated on the course. And if any sounds are detected, to include heartbeats, the polite officials go out of their polite way to politely hold up polite signs asking you in a polite way to politely stop making noise.  And if you choose to be impolite and ignore their polite warnings, they politely drag you behind a nearby bunker, and using their polite signs, politely beat you into a bloody unrecognizable pulp.

But despite all the potential golfing setbacks I finally broke down and gave golf a try, by which I mean I foolishly hit the ball once and spent the rest of the day hopelessly lost in the deep dark forest filled with dangerous golfer-eating lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my, searching for my ball which was as lost, scared, and disorientated as I was.  And to be honest, I didn’t so much need a club as I needed an industrial-strength weed whacker to find my ball.

However, not one to give up easily, I decided the only hope I had for staying out of the woods and not ending up in the tummy of some tarantula was to cheat.

So, taking a lesson from “Oddjob,” Goldfinger’s oriental manservant from the James Bond classic “Goldfinger,” I cut a small hole in my pant’s pocket.  When I’d hit a ball into the woods, pretty much every shot, I’d stroll into the woods, fake like I was earnestly searching for it, and with a nonchalant look on my face, I’d carefully grab a ball out of my golf bag, stick my hand into my pocket, and jiggle it around a little until the ball managed to drop out.

Thanks to this unique “golfing” technique I found myself spending most of my time in and around the actual golf course, and much less time climbing trees to avoid the ferocious fauna.

Anyway, after one round of golf, I’m now convinced that golf is a wonderful sport, which I highly encourage all of you non-golfers to immediately peel yourselves off of the sofa and take up.

Oh, by the way, the next time you’re playing a round of golf, if you happen to notice a man standing in the woods with a nonchalant look on his face, one hand casually rooting around down his pants, and the other fending off Godzilla with a sickle, don’t be alarmed, it’s just me setting up my next shot.  Go ahead and play through.