Golf Fore the Good

Dear Mr. So_and_So,

I was walking with my owner at the golf course yesterday, enjoying the quiet of the winter fairways in these days just before the course reopens. We were having a grand time chasing geese – or I was, anyway, while my owner tagged along carefully, doing her best to avoid everything that the geese had left behind. I cleared a large flock from the eleventh fairway and then went after a group on the twelfth tee. Then I chased after a few stragglers I had missed, a half dozen or so birds pecking about midway down the fairway. Why, you are wondering, should you care about my goose hunting abilities? Bear with me.

I dashed ahead, scooted away the last of the geese and, with my duty done, bolted into the woods to finalize the rest of my business. That’s when we found your golf club. More specifically, that’s when I found your club - actually, half of your golf club. It was like I had discovered the world’s best stick, and I emerged from a tangle of brambles with a two foot length of a golf club in my mouth, tail wagging with joy. Half shaft, half grip, could there be anything in the word more fascinating to a dog than something that looks like a stick and smells like a rubber ball? Apparently you are no longer as enamored of the stick as is am I, or you wouldn’t have left it there in the shrubbery of the twelfth hole.

I can’t be sure when it was that you played the Pines golf course, or when it may have been you left your golf club there. It is probably safe to assume the air was not quite as quiet and peaceful when you were last enjoying our fairways – and I use the term “enjoying” loosely. Perhaps you mistakenly left your club because you forgot just where you left it. Need I refresh your memory of the twelfth hole?

Lots of holes at the Pines can give even a fine golfer some trouble, but the twelfth is really a bugger, a double dogleg left. We found your club about 170 yards out, tucked behind the one fifty marker at the second dogleg and just a couple yards into the woods, where you’re blocked out from even a peek of the green. It is a tough place to be, no doubt. I can sympathize; I’ve been in the vicinity myself many times. It must have been even more difficult to make your shot from deep in the brush where you dropped your club, what with that bunker guarding the front of the green and all. I suppose you had to make a mighty hard swing at the ball and that’s when your club just snapped in two. You must have taken a hell of a divot. Or made a tree just kind of popped into your swing plane. That’s possible. During my owner’s very first round of golf on a championship course, she broke her five wood on a tree stump on her follow through. Really, she did. It wasn’t in anger. Of course not; these things happen all the time. It sure was funny, though. I hope you had as much fun when your club broke.

So, anyway, I thought I’d let you know I have your club, or part of it anyway, in case you’re missing it. We’d be happy to report which iron it was but it’s hard to tell from just the upper twenty four inches of shaft, especially with a couple of tooth marks in it. It’s too bad you had to play the rest of your round that day without a full set of irons. The Pines is a lot more forgiving when you keep your wits about you and play some good, sensible, solid iron shots. Hot headed golf gets you nowhere, especially at the Pines. But I’m sure you know that already. I’m guessing it was a seven iron or maybe an eight, since anyone stuck over there in that tough spot in the left rough wouldn’t dream of hitting anything but a fairly conservative shot to up in front of the green. Oh, those double doglegs just really bring out the best in one’s golf game, don’t they?

So, let me know if you’d like us to send your golf club back. It sure is one heck of a good stick. By the way, you need new grips.

Sincerely,

The Blue Dog