A Good Walk Spoiled
So I says to Brolaw Bee that I’d like a bit of golf. He’s willing and able so, during a stop near his stomping grounds, we wander off to a well-manured cow pasture formerly owned by Ike Ferguson. Scooter meets us there so it’s a bunch of Brolaws having a reunion. The much-needed nurse isn’t out yet because it’s only 9:30 as we take the first tee. We start bashing ol’ whitey all over everything but the fairway.
By the second tee I’m in a lather and need to steady the nerve. The flask comes out and Bee declines, citing a tender stomach. Scooter makes faces, saying he can’t face booze just yet; he confesses he was rifled on Jäger and root beer last night and isn’t at all well. What kind of teenager move is that for a man staring down the barrel of 50? I don’t know if to be awed or appalled but I catch on that he also has an excuse for errant shots now, owing to the errant shots the night previous. Genius.
Nothing much happens over the first nine except we’re nearly attacked by swallows guarding their turf, Bee’s looking like a man in need of a certain pink and chalky stomach reliever, and I blow a tee shot in spectacular fashion: falling well short of the ladies’ tee (despite the fact that it went 200 yards straight up). There are thunderous guffaws accompanied by calls for me to “drop ‘em!” but no one truly wants to see that at this early hour on a hangover or an upset stomach so the garden hose stays on its reel.
Bob from Hamilton joins us on the 10th tee, spoiling our family outing but also giving a new dynamic to our conversation as he spreads compliments and admonishments far and wide. Bob is grizzled and sinewed and looks like a cross between Sam Elliott and Tom Selleck. I’m thinking he could single-handedly take on a group of determined terrorists that might have designs on taking over the sleepy Belwoods Golf Course this morning. Suspiciously, he won’t take a hit off the flask either and I’m feeling like a man alone. Bob claims he doesn’t like booze to interfere with his game. We’re all playing (double) bogey golf here, fer Chrissakes! How much poorer would things become with a little Scottish water? Maybe Bob’s Navy Seal training prohibits him from touching a drop when he might need to run to his trunk for the Heckler & Koch.
So what happens? Where’s the payoff to this story? There’s none, I’m afraid. I have more scotch and, not surprisingly, finish my round by drowning balls on the two ponds found on the 18th hole. Brolaw Bee wins the round by a mile and that surely means I’ll be reliving the more humiliating moments of this day for the next decade. If you made it this far through a pointless story, allow me to offer you a further folly: some nearby farmer has built a castle-like building on his property for purposes I can only speculate at. It’s enormous. What sort of hi jinx might you get up to with a faux castle?
