PRAYERS NEVER ANSWERED ON A GOLF COURSE
Post 14 - March 26th 2023
After a couple of rather heavy and serious posts it's time for a laugh again on the blog ... my take on golf was originally written way back in March 2019 during my time with the Saturday Satire so I will post it here as written 4 years-ago ... Hey, I'm the perfect NAGA at golf and while that is hardly a claim to fame it is what it is ...
My journey with Lewy Body Dementia will mean things like golf will eventually become a thing of the past ... but gee, it you have ever seen me on a golf course then you will agree that is actually a plus ...
But for now, have a read and hopefully have a chuckle with the JonnyG golfing life ... thanks as always for checking in ...
It takes a lot of balls to play golf the way I do.
Tough gig this golf.
The game was invented it seems by the same people who believe that music comes out of a bagpipe.
Golf, I once heard was like life, but I don’t believe that. The way I play golf it is far more complicated than life could ever be. Even my life.
A golf partner once said to me the problem with my golf game is that I am standing too close to the ball. After I have hit it!
I did ask my golfing partner out on the course how he liked my game. “Oh, it's a great game you play,” he said “But personally I still prefer golf.”
So, this game called golf, what is the attraction?
It is played universally by so many. Golfers are out on the course in all types of weather, day and night, sunshine, rain, hail, wind and it does not seem to bother them at all.
Golf is played by everyone. Male, female, kids, young and old.
Strange sport indeed is golf. I reckon that way back when this game was named as golf, it was because all the other foul-language 4-letter words were already taken.
Strangely this is a sport that has its own terminology.
You smack a little white ball along a fairway with a driver, a numbered iron and then putt from a green, with a putter to get the ball into a cup and try to get a low score.
In Golf, the lowest score wins.
You can hit a Birdie, and Eagle or an Albatross. Apparently!
For me, all I seem to hit while golfing is the trees. I wonder why I could rarely hit this 100 metre wide grassed fairway with my golf shot yet regularly hit a one-inch-thick tree branch.
But golf favours nobody, it is a tough game for all comers. The greatest evangelical preacher of all time Billy Graham once said. “The only place my prayers are not answered is on the golf course.”
My brother Rod is a golf enthusiast, ok, more of a golf tragic.
When he first started playing golf he was in high school, we lived near the Barmera golf course and Rod spent many hours on what was then the 18th fairway, hitting up and down to perfect his game.
A Barmera Club Champion on multiple occasions was a dear old gent named Eb Farmer. Eb took a keen interest in Rod’s development and helped him considerably in understanding the basic fundamentals of the golf game. Getting an understanding of swing and stance when starting out as a golfer is paramount. Early bad habits in your game develop into lasting bad habits in your game. I know that well.
But Rod learned lots from old Eb.
One day Rod asked, “What’s the easiest shot on a golf course Mr Farmer?” Old Eb replied, “Your fourth putt.”
For me, there was no Eb Farmer, I developed bad habits at golf and I am still a NAGA.
One day I said to my wife (yeah, you guess which one), “Do you think it's a sin to play golf on Sunday?” My wife replied, “The way you play golf JonnyG it's a sin on any day.”
Clearly I’m not Jonny ‘Tiger Woods’.
For me, Golf looks to be a game to be played once you are too out of shape to play footy but not old enough for lawn bowls.
My mate Bob, he plays golf.
“The only reason I play golf is to bug my wife” Bob once told me over a few pints at the Woody.
“How so” I asked. “Well, she thinks I'm out having fun” was his reply.
One day I was having a hit with Bob up at Thaxted Park Golf Course in Woodcroft. I noticed when he was putting on the first green that he had a different putter from the last time we played.
“Isn’t that a new putter you’re using? What happened to the old one?’ I asked. Bob said, “I hurled it into the dam up on the eighth when I missed an easy putt one day and it couldn’t swim.”
Another round I had with Bob I had miss hit a few balls and had lost a couple in the rough. We teed off on the 12th and sure enough I hooked my shot into the scrub, another lost ball hunt.
Bob called over to me, “Here’s your ball.” I walked over, looked at the ball, “That’s not my ball,” I said. “It looks too old.”
“Yeah, well that's because it has been a long time since we started looking for it out here in the bush.” Bob replied with a smirk.
Then he said to me, “For you Jonny G, golf balls are like eggs.”
“What do you mean Bob,” I asked. He said, “They're white, they are sold by the dozen, and a week later you have to buy more.”
This time I sensed a tone of mocking!
My Mum, she was a golfer. Not a good golfer but she played for many, many years.
Remembering that long ago when women cursed and beat the ground with sticks, it was called witchcraft. However in Mum’s day of course they called it golf.
But her golf involvement went far beyond the fairway, she was an administrator at various levels and contributed strongly to golf in Barmera, the Riverland and what was then the Eastern District Ladies Association.
Joan Green helped woman’s golf in our area grow enormously in her time.
Mum, miss her dearly, but she really was a hacker on the golf course.
My Dad was a golfer too and like Mum he hacked his way around the course for many moons.
One time when he and Mum were playing and she was having some trouble hitting her shot from the rough she said, “I'd move heaven and earth to break 100 on this course today.” Now Dad being a joker and having a very quick wit said, “Joan, try heaven because you've already moved most of the earth.”
And to complete the family involvement with the sport my sister Jan played golf a bit as a youngster. Jan was a shocker, no golfing smarts or talent at all. I’m thinking the day God handed out talent to the golfers that Jan was hiding behind the door.
Now, she did win a golf trophy one day but to save her embarrassment I will not divulge any other details. But, it would be worth asking her in person.
Golf courses around the world have great clubhouses where players can go to unwind and down a few grogs after a serious or leisurely round.
Back when I wore a younger man’s clothes, I would often have numerous froffies in the clubhouse at a local golf course.
Despite my poor form out on the course I was always in top form in the bar at the 19th hole.
I would spot a chicky-babe sitting on her own on a stall at the bar, stroll over and deliver one of my famous pick-up lines.
“Your butt reminds me of the greens out on the course today, hard and firm” I said one night to this little honey. I got the stare, you know the stare.
However, I had more to offer so I added, “If you are into kinky stuff, maybe you and me could play a round of golf and I would let you beat me.”
Now, golf and foul language go hand-in-hand out on the course but listening to this babe at that minute, then it seems that type of talk also spills over into the clubhouse. Wow, I never knew!
Anyhow, moving on. Golf is a game where the ball lies poorly and the golfers lie well.
It’s a game in which you yell fore, you score a six, and you write down five.
Umpire Vernon (shut-up Jan), he would have been right at home playing golf. He is a cheat.
Grant Gordon Vernon, the AFL umpire who gifted the Cows the 1997 flag when he failed to pay that obvious great pack mark to Cats star Lee Colbert in a final at Footy Park.
Cost the Cats the premiership. Bastard.
Ok, I will leave things here because like a round of golf, this little article took a while to get through. So, as this satire ends, I have a JonnyG word of advice for all golfers.
When it comes to buying new golf clubs, try before you buy ... never buy a golf club until you've had a chance to throw it
Well said
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