Blind Luck

I’ve been close on many occasions. I’ve hit the pin and had the ball come to rest an inch from the hole. I’ve probably been within three inches of the hole on my first shot ten times in my lifetime. I’ve had eagles and once almost a double eagle. But I’ve never had a hole in one. Getting a hole in one is the cat’s meow, it’s the coup de grace, it’s the mother lode, it’s the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, it’s at the top of every golfer’s bucket list. And, it provides lifetime bragging rights.

 

So, you’ll probably have to pardon me for saying that some folks just don’t deserve the prize while others, like myself, hit balls year after year with no luck. That’s really what it is. Luck. Unless you are like Norman Manley who the Guinness Book of Records says has scored an “ace” 59 times. That can’t be luck, can it? Or what about Patrick Wills who had three holes in one in a single round? How boring. Did you know that Tiger Woods has had 18 holes in one on the PGA circuit? (so far of course).

 

But what about my friend Chris? First of all, let’s be clear, he’s not really a friend; he was just someone I knew many years ago. But he has ever lasting bragging rights. Chris had a hole in one on his very first round of golf. And I saw it. Ugh!

 

When I was 15 there was nothing better in my life than golf. I often played with my friend Dave and we spent most of the day every summer at our home course – Thames Valley Golf Club. With Dave there was always golf talk. We played together and talked about Arnold Palmer and his knock-kneed style of putting. We talked about that new chunky faced guy named Jack Nicklaus who was starting to challenge Arnie. We even talked about Billy Casper with the smooth smooth swing. And how long would Sam Snead continue to play, we’d ask? How possible was it that Slammin’ Sam had scored a hole in one with every club in his bag except a putter? On that subject, Dave and I once tried to ace the 12^th hole by using a putter, just to say we had done something even Sam had not been able to do. We hit about twenty balls each and came very close, but, as they say, no cigar.

 

In our neighbourhood most kids came from similar post-war middle-class families. The exception was Chris’ family who benefited from a doctor’s income. Chris’ dad had been a doctor in Germany before the war and afterwards the family came to Canada to start a new life here. Dr. B. set up practice in his house right in the middle of our neighbourhood. He was a good doctor. And his oldest son, Chris, was not a bad guy, really. He was a year older than me, and while we knew each other, we didn’t really do anything together. But the one thing about him and his family was that he seemed to have everything the rest of us could only dream of. They had a new car (and Chris could drive it!). Many of my friends’ families did not even own a car. We had an old 1958 Chevy which I was itching to drive. I guess we were luckier than most. Chris and his sister Renata, whose birthday was on the same day as mine, were always well dressed in new clothes; they had new shoes while we had running shoes (PF Flyers I might add). They had shiny Raleigh three speed bikes; we had rusty CCM single speed hand-me-downs (I got mine second hand from the Monk family). Chris’ family went on vacations to resorts; we went camping. You get the idea?

 

In a time when athletic prowess was what the cool guys had, sadly I had none. But Chris did. He played basketball and football on the school team. By comparison, I played golf well, but golf was not one of those marquee sports. Chris had never played golf. One day at school Dave came up to me and said he had invited Chris to play golf with us on Saturday – did I have some old clubs and a bag I could lend him? Dave was in Chris’ class at school, one year ahead of me, and he confessed that Chris had cornered him and asked him about learning to play. Dave had graciously invited him to play with us.

 

What could I say? Dave knew I had an extra faded canvas bag with a foot-long rip in the basement with some Bobby Jones irons and my fishing wood in it – the clubs I used before I got my current set. When I was younger, I played with the old set and I would pull out my fishing wood whenever my ball happened to go into the river or if I spotted a ball in the water as I walked along. My fishing wood had saved me many a ball, and helped me find many a Titleist DT, the best ball you could buy (forget that sometimes they we split or waterlogged, they were Titleists). The fishing wood was faded and chipped and the windings that held the head to the shaft had come loose. I had put electrical tape on it to ensure the head would not come off when swinging but it still jiggled a bit when you used it. I was a little embarrassed when I originally played with that set, and to think now Chris would be using it. It certainly was not his style. (But it would be funny to see his face when he played with it).

 

Dave and Chris had a lot in common, notably that they could both drive a car. Dave’s dad had a Ford Fairlane 500 that was the envy of all the kids on Graham Crescent where he lived. Sometimes Dave’s dad let him drive it. He would drop by my place on Stevenson Ave and we’d chat about golf as he sat behind the wheel with the window down. I was not allowed to sit in the car, of course. Parents’ rules. And Dave could never drive to the golf course. It was just too far away.

 

When we played golf together, the trip to and from the course took up a good part of our day. Dave and I caught the first Ridout bus on Hale Street at 6:03 am. On the same bus were morning commuters who occasionally tripped over our bags as the bus became more crowded. We got off downtown with our golf clubs and carts. We’d wait for about 15 minutes and then transfer to the hourly scheduled Riverside bus for the long trip to the golf club. We’d arrive at the city greenhouses across the river from the golf course, but it would take us another fifteen minutes to walk down the steep steps from the greenhouses to the river – the descent was difficult with our golf bags and cart, and often we would have to just carry both down the steps. From there we would walk up some more steps to the walking (bouncy) bridge that crossed the river. We’d then come down the steps on the other side of the bridge and follow the road up the hill to the clubhouse at the golf course. It took us almost two hours to complete the morning one-way trip. Coming home in the evening it was off-peak hours and it often took us much longer.

 

The evening before we were to play, Dave called me to say Chris would be driving him to the course and could he come over and pick up the extra set? “Sure”, I said. No mention of a ride for me. When Dave arrived to pick the clubs up his jaw dropped. “I’d forgotten how old and worn these were”, he said. “Maybe you can loan Chris your clubs”, I shot back. Dave grabbed the bag and clubs and started walking home. I knew he would never lend Chris his set.

 

It was a long bus ride by myself to the course the next day. I arrived before the others and went to the ball rack next to the first tee to see how many groups were waiting. It was a busy morning – there were already 8 balls in the rack. The rack was simply a long metal tube sloped downward with a hole big enough for a ball to be placed in it at one end and removed at the other. When you arrived, you placed your ball in the rack at the top. When you ball worked its way to the bottom of the rack, your group was next to tee off. As I put a ball in, I realized it would be more than an hour before we teed off. I then went to the driving range to hit some balls.

 

At the range, I opened my bag’s ball pocket and pulled out about 20 old balls to hit practice shots. Thames Valley did not have a tractor system to collect balls and bring them back to a central point. Golfers brought their own balls and retrieved them. Shortly after I started to hit, Chris and Dave appeared. Dave reached into his bag and started to hit some, but I noticed Chris standing there just watching. It suddenly donned on me that he had never played. Maybe he had never even swung a golf club. I went over to him and gave him a few old balls. Dave seemed preoccupied with his swing and kept to himself. I pulled out a seven iron from the old ripped bag and gave it to Chris to hold. I explained to him the importance of a grip and showed him how Arnold Palmer said to hold your hands. I then told him that his grip tension should respect Bobby Jones’ tip to “shake hands with a lady”. We talked about how the swing was more like a tennis lob and not like a home run baseball swat. Then Chris started to hit some. Surprisingly he didn’t “whiff” as so many beginners do. His ball did not go straight but he hit it solidly. As an athlete it was obvious to me that he could play the game, but hopefully, I thought, he would give it up in favour of another sport before he got too good at this one too.

 

We hit all our balls, went onto the range and picked them up, and proceeded to walk up to the ball rack area. There were only two groups ahead of us now, so we waited, Chris focused on the players ahead as they hit. “Nice bag that guy has”, he said, never once looking at my ripped version that he was borrowing.

 

Beginners were told to play the nine-hole course at Thames Valley. It had several par 3 holes and the layout could be played in a reasonable time period. There were not too many places to lose a ball. The first hole was a simple par 3 up the hill, about 150 yards in total. Dave hit first and managed to find the trees to the left of the green. Then Chris hit – he topped it and it went about fifty yards. Then I hit it onto the green. “Nice shot!”, said Chris. “Darn right”, I said to myself before humbly responding out loud with a simple “thanks”. I parred the first hole, Dave had a five, and Chris a nine – he just couldn’t get the speed right for putting.

 

The next hole was a par 4 and a little harder. I think Chris had about 14, but we told him that 9 was the maximum for each hole.

 

The third hole was a par three, but it was quite long, playing about 175 yards. It was a straight shot from the tee that crossed a service road in front of the green. Behind the green was a hill about twenty feet higher than the green and on top of the hill was the tee for the fourth hole. We waited for the group ahead of us to exit the green before hitting our shots.

 

I hit and landed short of the green. Dave hit a good one that faded just to the right of the green and was close enough to putt his next shot. Chris was last. Before hitting, he asked us what we felt was the right club for him to use. I told him that it was at least a wood shot up there, and he pulled out my fishing wood. He looked at it and then asked, “This one okay”? I think he really was asking if the wood might fall apart if he used it. “I’ve had some great shots with that club”, I said, “It should get you there”. I was expecting him to dribble one along the fairway as the club now had a slightly loose head that made it very difficult to hit the ball square. Chris took his stance, assumed the Arnold Palmer grip, shook hands with a lady, and miraculously hit a low line drive that careened off the service road, and raced toward the green. Unfortunately, it was travelling so fast it kept rolling and rolling. The ball went up the hill behind the green, and then bang… it hit a golf cart belonging to a player waiting to tee off in the group ahead. Suddenly, the ball reversed direction and started down the hill toward the flag. We sat there in suspended disbelief as the ball rolled directly toward the hole. It hit the flag pole and dropped out of sight. Someone on the next tee yelled, “It’s a hole in one”.

 

I could not believe it. Chris starting dancing around for he knew what a hole in one meant. Golf heaven was awaiting him. He now had eternal bragging rights. He kissed my fishing wood and then ran toward the hole. I just stood there on the tee. How possible was this? It wasn’t even a real hole in one. The shot would have been nowhere near the green if it hadn’t hit a piece of asphalt on the service road! And then, if it hadn’t hit the cart it would have been an impossible second shot down that hill! Lady Luck had Chris directly in her sights that day. And he had scored a hole in one on his very first round!

 

We played the rest of the holes. Throughout Chris was on cloud nine, wanting to use the fishing wood on every hole. But his scores kept getting worse. It didn’t matter to him when we finished and we told him he had scored a 73 for nine holes (with the 9-stroke maximum applied for all but one hole). As we ate our lunch in the club house, people kept coming up to congratulate him. He repeated the hole in one story at least thirty times. “I love this game”, he told us. “I’m going to get myself a good set of clubs now, and really take up this game”. How nice. Well, there was no way I’d ever lend him my fishing wood again.

 

We putted on the putting green for a little while after lunch. Chris said he needed to practice his putting a little more. Then Chris and Dave got into Chris’ car for their ride home. While they drove off into the sunset, I pulled my cart down to the steps before the bouncy bridge and dejectedly crossed the river before mounting the hill and waiting for the Riverside bus to appear. It was a very long trip home.

 

I never played golf with Chris again. I did hear from Dave that he got a new set of Wilson Staff clubs and a new bag and cart. Apparently too, he aced the seventh hole that same summer before unfortunately breaking his leg in football practise in September. I never heard anything more about his golf exploits. Maybe that was just a little justice for the real golfers like me. But I can still see him kissing my fishing wood after that amazing shot on the third hole. And 50 years after, I can also see him counting all the holes in one he has had in his golf career. 60 perhaps? Regardless of the number, all of them, I am quite sure, were just blind luck.