For several years I played regularly with Richard, Ron and Paul on Saturday and Sunday mornings at the Outaouais Golf Club. Because we were a regular group the pro shop knew when any of us called that we were looking for a regular tee time with the same golfing partners. In those days it was hard to get tee times at convenient times and the system worked well for us. Every weekend, we had a 9:17 tee off.
Ron and Paul were mid-handicap golfers who managed to play quickly despite often being off the fairway or lost in the woods. Richard and I were a little more adept at keeping the ball in the fairway and wasting no time in hitting our balls from fairway to green. As a group we managed to meet the two membership criteria for obtaining a regular tee off time: spending minimal time looking for balls and playing quickly. Funny how that worked.
One September day the weather was a beautiful temperate 20 degrees (centigrade) and the trees were starting to change to beautiful yellow and red colours. The course was in excellent shape. Everything seemed very pleasant for a round of golf, except for Richard’s demeanour. He was a golf perfectionist and was having a bad day. Indeed, despite the fact he ordinarily played quite well, Richard seemed to always have a bad day. This day, unfortunately, he was having a very bad day for him indeed.
Richard’s misery began on the first hole when he drove his first shot into the adjoining driving range – a two stroke penalty. It did not improve on the second hole when he dribbled his shot off the tee into the water hazard. On the third hole he hooked his ball over the fence on the left side of the fairway – another two-stroke penalty. He found the water again on number five. He four putted the sixth green. By the time he got to the seventh tee, Richard’s blood pressure had reached the boiling point and the rest of us were not less than eager to speak or even get close to him.
And then Richard hit a perfect drive. It looked like his game might be coming back. When he got to his ball a strong wind was blowing into his face from the east, so he chose to hit a five iron instead of his normal seven iron. As he hit the ball, though, the wind gusted in the other direction and began to carry his ball well beyond the green. “Stop”, he yelled but to no avail as the ball soared over the green and hit the clubhouse behind. Richard slammed his club to the ground, but the ball had not finished its flight. It careened high into the air and miraculously flew backwards, back towards the green. It landed softly and as if on a mission, rolled right into the cup. We could not believe what we had just seen.
On a hole such as this one hitting your second shot into the hole was equivalent to a hole-in-one, the most revered accomplishment in golf. But, poor Richard did not experience the happiness that comes from holing an eagle shot. No, he was still upset about hitting his second shot too far. We all came over to “high-five” him for the accomplishment, but he would have nothing to do with it. “Its too much, he said, “I’ve had it with this stupid game”. He turned his back on us and walked toward the club house and then into the locker room.
We all looked at one another with that “What Now?” look. Ron grabbed Richard’s cart and pulled it along until we finished the hole. He left Richard’s clubs by the club storage area, knowing full well that the man would not be playing again that day. On the way to the next tee, Ron stuck his head into the locker room to tell Richard he had left his clubs by the club storage entrance. Richard simply replied: “Keep them, I’m never going to play this crazy game again!” Ron quietly backed up and joined us at the next tee. “He’ll be ready for next week, I’m sure”, he said.
We went on playing that day and it turned out to be quite enjoyable without Richard’s fowl attitude (no “eagle” pun intended). We finished our rounds and met – the three of us – at the clubhouse for some serious after-golf discussion. Richard’s eagle on number seven was the beer topic for our table and many others around us were very interested when they heard about it. No one could recall anyone ever getting an eagle on that hole, much less in the way it happened. A few members asked us to go out to the hole and show them just how the feat had come to pass. In what was a minor spectacle for the Club, we collectively marched out to the seventh hole to try and again envision how the shot had been struck and then how it had remarkably come to rest in the hole. There was a lot of head shaking, whistling and smiling from the re-enactment attendees. Had Richard been there he would have been the hero of the day.
But Richard didn’t answer his phone when Ron got home and called to ask him about playing the following week. He didn’t answer when Ron called again later in the week. And he didn’t show up that week to play, or any other week after that to the end of the season. We couldn’t believe any golfer would so pointedly quit, but we still felt that Richard would change his mind about playing when spring came.
In early December Ron told us that Richard had never picked up his clubs from the club storage and that the club had asked him to come and get them for the winter. (Everyone had to take their clubs home for the winter). Richard was not answering his phone since he had gone to Florida for the winter season. Ron diligently went out to the club and retrieved Richard’s clubs. He would give them to Richard on his return from the south.
On Richard’s return to Canada in late March, Ron ventured over to his house to bring him back his clubs. Richard answered the door, and calmly told Ron he could have the clubs – he was never going to play golf again. He stopped any further discussion about golf but graciously invited Ron in for a beer. Apparently, he had a new hobby – stamp collecting – and he took great pains to show Ron his latest acquisitions. “Too much”, Ron later told us. But no Canadian can hold back the lure of playing golf in the spring. He still thought Richard would see the light soon.
When the new golf season began a few weeks later, Richard was nowhere to be seen. We had a new member of our foursome. Marc was a congenial fellow, a fast player, and it took us no time to happily include him in our foursome. We retained our 9:17 tee off time. All was good.
As for Richard’s clubs, we collectively decided to raffle them off at the regular men’s night golf session and obtained $112 for his bag, cart and clubs. Ron took the money and bought some First Day Cover stamp sets which he said were well received by Richard as “a better way of spending money than wasting it on golf”. Stamp collecting was much easier on his nerves, Richard shared.
How very sad!
To think Richard could have been recounting that wonderful eagle on number seven for the rest of his life. (But maybe he did!)
MainstreetRob 