What a feat

Never in my wildest imaginings did this mere nobody from the Ozarks believe I could help establish a Guinness World Record on a golf course. Lest I’m sadly mistaken, that had to have been what unfolded last weekend at the Harrison Country Club.

The Guinness officials weren’t actually present to witness the dubious feat. Yet I’m still patiently awaiting their call. I remain convinced my partner Ed Thiel and I had to have earned our place in their hallowed book of world records.

It happened during a one-day scramble tournament where more than 80 golfers (rejoicing in freedom from covid self-isolation) turned out to enjoy sunshine and

18 holes of good-natured competition.

These folks were so starved for any outdoor activity, they’d have competed for a tuna sandwich without the pickle and chips.

I’d best start at the beginning. A day before likely setting the planet’s record, we’d visited the well-equipped Golfstx store on the Harrison square. There, the congenial head pro and manager Rob Mapes told me he knew what I’d been missing in my never-ending quest for longer tee shots.

There’s something primitively hormonal about most male golfers and the length of their tee shots.

Handing me a gleaming Exotics driver, my imagination leapt to Oklahoma tigers and a mullet-tressed, imprisoned zoo owner, then to finally strike a golf ball like Tiger Woods. Funny, isn’t it, how our minds can make such impossible linkages?

Mapes arranged his magical device that measures a golfer’s swing speed, then watched as I hit balls into his indoor net. Still feeling 35 inside, I expected my swing to register, oh, I dunno, maybe 500 mph. So imagine my expression when it showed I was actually waving the club around at a darn-near slow-motion 73 mph, which happens to be my age.

He assured me that, with adjustments to the shaft and club head, I was bound to improve. So out came the credit card and out I strolled with my glistening driver and dreams of 300-yard drives.

Before leaving, Ed suggested I might also consider a set of new irons from the impressive assortment Rob had lined along one wall. “Naw, don’t need ’em,” I responded, disregarding my late father’s admonition that I could hit a ball 400 yards, but if I couldn’t hit the green with my approach shot it didn’t much matter.

“All I need is this Exotics cannon to score like a pro,” I smiled confidently. “Nothing can stop me now!”

Which brings me back to our apparent world record.

Under the two-person tournament format, we selected the best from each of our drives and repeated the process for our approach shots through every green. Then we recorded our team’s low score on each hole.

The round began with a bogey (despite a lengthy drive Rob had promised). That was followed by consecutive pars on each remaining front nine hole. Our back nine began with more pars, another bogey, then two more to finish the day at four over par.

I concede there’s nothing remotely Guinness-worthy in that relatively mediocre performance.

But somehow, through divine disgrace, or whatever force influences this sport, we’d finished 18 entire holes without either of us ever hitting a green in regulation. Nope. Not once.

As our game had labored on that day, things became so bad we’d abandoned our chipping irons and began using putters once we somehow managed to get within 10 yards of a green. Anything short of kicking or underhanding the ball on the green became our mission. At one point we began laughing maniacally at our inability.

In any fair-minded world of scramble golf, two full-growed men with 110 cumulative years of the game behind them being incapable of landing on even one green in regulation can’t happen, right? Oh, yes, it did.

Sad but true how a pair of septuagenarians with hopes far exceeding their abilities wound up basically relying on their drivers and putters to somehow claim second place in our flight.

How was it humanly possible that over the course of four hours and a combined total of 148 shots, we were so inept, often while laying just 80 yards from the flagstick? Or that we each had to resort to our putters from the fairways to miraculously save pars. Ol’ Dad was right about the futility of hitting a golf ball out of sight only to miss every green.

Afterwards, as we counted our team’s bountiful $60 prize money, I remembered Ed had encouraged me to consider a set of new irons to accompany that shimmering new driver. So the following day I sheepishly headed back to Golfstx and golf guru Rob, seeking fairway irons that might offer a less embarrassing alternative to my putter.

Logic told me that since my putter fortunately had worked from the taller grass near the greens well enough to help establish a likely new world record, my problem clearly had to lie with my other inadequate equipment.

After all, I’ve lived too long for it to have been a lack of skill. Gotta go. Phone’s ringing.

Now go out into the world and treat everyone you meet exactly like you want them to treat you.