What handicap?

 

          I’ve been dodging my golf league, which is strict about score-keeping, for the past two weeks, but today I broke down and played. Being a middling-to-poor player, I’m tired of perpetually being teamed with those in the top division. I’m even guilty of signing up to play because I know there’s a 99% chance of rain that day (as I did last week).

          Why do I stay? I’m hedging my bets for a future when the friends I go out with on other days will no longer be available.

          But today went well. My group of four consisted of one person I play with for fun on Tuesdays, one (Nancy) I’ve been out with before who is good but who doesn’t intimidate me, and a third who I didn’t know but who was a delightfully poor player. Very soothing.

          It was a little worrisome that the third player never quite grasped the fact that you need to wait behind the firing line before marching out in front of someone who’s swinging a club. Maybe she finally got the message when she was yards ahead of us; someone’s shot, instead of going straight, winged off to the left and hit her golf bag next to her.

          We were the very last of the league to tee off, likely because of the second player, Nancy.  I’m pretty sure she’s well into her 80s, is doubled over with age, and always brings along her four-prong cane.  I think the schedulers have deemed her a slow player and so park her at the back so she doesn’t slow down everyone else.  Still, she kept up with us perfectly well. I would just drove her in the golf cart to her ball, she’d hobble over to it, swing, and send it sailing for yards beyond any of ours.

All in all, It was a good day. We had perfect weather, I made par on one hole, and was one over par on another.

          Our octogenarian? She won the round, out-swinging us all.