Golf Fore the Good

The trouncing I’d taken from my brother during Master’s week down at the ACC was still stinging. I thought for sure that playing my home course would give me a distinct advantage in our next golf match, what with my brother’s tendency to swing hard and fast. The Pines is known for its long, tight fairways, often a difficult venue for golfers who refuse to club down. Unfortunately, my timing was off.

In fact, everything was off. I’d love to blame my bleary headache and waves of wooziness on the late night family gathering of the previous evening but there was really no one to blame but myself. It wasn’t the company but the cocktails that had done me in. With my heady expectations of victory I hadn’t planned on a hangover.

Steady is not a word I would use to describe my golf game. Knowing my brother plays a similarly erratic game, I wasn’t too worried when I went a couple holes down out of the gate. There was plenty of golf left to be played. Such was the haze in my head, of greater concern was managing my own survival, to gather my wits about me and find a way to cease the sway in my swing. From tee shot to four footer, my world was in subtle and offsetting motion, and not in a good way.

So poor was my play my brother rode silently in his golf cart, not a shred of trash talking or gloating to be heard. It was eerily quiet for one of our sibling rivalry matches.

He played out of his shoes. He lagged several downhill birdie putts, guiding them safely in for par. Sure, I thought; this is the man who usually blows those downhillers right by and makes bogie. Not that day. He had his game face on. Maybe it was the diving stock market that drove his determination, but I had a growing feeling that the boy wasn’t going to let go of any part of his retirement fund on this match. I’d never seen him play so well. Anxiety began to creep into my already unsteady game.

I’d waited six months to kick my brother’s butt. “Anytime now would be a good time to start,” another of our playing companions urged, as I trudged along and muttered my need to revenge my loss. I was six down at the turn and couldn’t begin to fathom the mounting presses. My head hurt.

After the turn, I finally strung together a couple good shots, won on eleven and then pushed a few holes. I’d stopped the bleeding – and those bloody presses.

On fourteen, I knew it was now or never, though I hadn’t dared peek at a scorecard. I suspected we’d chocked up at least four presses and the hole was a three hole carry over. There were a couple of bucks on the line, to say the least. The swing, if I lost the hole, was somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred and twenty dollars - a small wager for some golfers, but well out of my personal comfort zone in a sagging economy. Lee Travino’s oft quoted words about playing for five dollars a hole with only two in your pocket echoed in my head.

I had a right to left breaking putt, a good twenty feet, to stay alive; for a win, if my brother missed his own, much shorter putt. For the first time all day, I could see the line clearly. Be the ball. It rolled a long, beautiful track to the hole and dropped in. My brother hit the first bad putt he’d made all day and missed it on the low side. I offered up a prayer of thanks to the golf gods and made a mental note to jot a letter of thanks to Lee Travino for the inspiration.

I was energized by my good fortune and kicked it up a notch for the last few holes. In all, it was a mild and civilized match by our normal standards. I was still quietly nursing my self-inflicted wounds while I enjoyed a Bloody Mary at the bar, exhausted from my on course efforts and barely functional enough to revel in my triumph. Meanwhile, my brother was left pondering how the nine shots he’d bettered me by in stroke play nonetheless left him a loser.

Funny thing about match play with those carry over holes; you can suck wind all day and go home a winner. Or you can play some really good golf and lose $60 to your little sister on a $5 bet. Sweet.

My brother asked that I point out that he barely received a rap on the knuckles compared to the whooping he gave me last spring and that he is far and away at the top of the money list in our ongoing battle. To be continued…